The excuses were there for the taking, but the Rangers weren’t biting.
They didn’t call it a schedule loss, they didn’t lament the awful officiating, and they didn’t think the game was stolen by an opposing goalie. Instead, the Rangers returned to Broadway after a weeklong western sojourn and just couldn’t make the plays that mattered, dropping a 5-2 contest to the Predators on Monday night.
“I’m really proud of our guys and the way we competed, to have the energy we had and compete as hard as we did for 60 minutes, it says an awful lot,” coach David Quinn said. “We just weren’t able to capitalize on our chances, which was disappointing.”
Ah, there’s a theme that made the trek from sunny California, as the Rangers (16-13-4) ended their trip with a disappointing 4-3 shootout loss in Anaheim on Saturday afternoon that turned a great trip into a still-successful 2-1-1. But a semi-red-eye flight home, and day off Sunday, and then the heavy Predators (15-12-5) rolling in wasn’t exactly ideal.
But if the Rangers had a big flaw, it might have been a touch of overeagerness. They had the puck a lot, and even if they played much of the game on the outside, they were still getting their chances. They peppered goalie Juuse Saros with 41 shots while counterpart Alexandar Georgiev only saw 22.
But the Predators conservatively managed a 3-1 lead, and despite the superlative Artemi Panarin getting his 20th of the season with 2:42 left in regulation to make it 3-2, the Blueshirts could never get the equalizer. A 200-foot empty-netter from Roman Josi was his second goal of the night at 18:11, and villain Ryan Ellis — who had violently elbowed Pavel Buchnevich in the head in the second period — added another with Georgiev on the bench to finish it off.
“I liked a lot of our game, I thought we played as team, played with pretty structure, we supported each other, had the puck a lot,” defenseman Marc Staal said. “Just weren’t able to put one in when we needed to turn the tables.”
It could have been quite a bit different if the Rangers had scored on any of their four power-play chances, most notably the one midway through the second with Ellis in the box, blood starting to boil from crack officiating duo of Jean Hebert and Kelly Sutherland allowing such a bad hit go for just two minutes while Buchnevich was in concussion protocol (soon to return).
“You start balling up a little bit, and I think it was going both ways,” Staal said. “Emotions start getting a little higher. But we didn’t really do anything stupid, we didn’t take a dumb penalty, when stuff like that can happen. I thought we kept it check for the most part.
“But it would have been nice to bury it on the power play. That’s where it really hurts, and you get momentum off that.”
But the man-advantage couldn’t come through then, when it was still 1-1 on first-period goals from Rocco Grimaldi and Chris Kreider, and not with any of the next three chances in a game where penalties once again came with an arbitrary regard for the rulebook. Instead, Jusi made it 2-1 at 10:16 of the second when Adam Fox gave him just enough room to rip a shot from the right dot.
“I wish I got that one,” said Georgiev, who made 19 saves in his sixth start in the past nine games.
Just over five minutes later, following a wrestling match in front of the Nashville net that somehow only drew coincidental minors, Mattias Ekholm beat Georgiev on a breakaway seconds after stepping out of the box to make it 3-1. That was all the Predators ended up needing, making the Rangers return home on a sour note — but without excuses.
“You could use it as a crutch, but I thought we had a good mindset going into the game,” Staal said. “It’s hard not to see us get rewarded for that, but we’ll learn, move by it, and get ready for the next one.”
