They had survived a week of living dangerously against inferior opponents Toronto (twice) and L.A., but the Rangers sure weren’t able to surmount their deficiencies against the superior Sharks.
It all fell in on the Rangers, all of the consequences they had escaped in constructing the tail end of their seven-game winning streak that ended emphatically last night at the Garden by a 7-3 score that was surely indicative of the gulf separating the two teams over 60 minutes of hockey.
“I think we’d gotten away with a few, but we couldn’t against a team that talented,” Chris Drury said. “I thought we started out well, but as the game continued they seemed either to be on the power play all the time or have the puck on their sticks all night.”
The Rangers were excellent through the first half of the first period in taking a 2-0 edge on a Drury even-strength goal and a Michael Del Zotto power-play goal at 8:34. But then came the parade of penalties and a deluge of goals against Steve Valiquette, who wasn’t very good at all, but who didn’t receive nearly enough help, either.
It was 2-2 by the end of the first. When Jed Ortmeyer banged home a rebound at 1:19 of the second to give the Sharks a 3-2 lead, the Blueshirts trailed for the first time in 273:09, since midway through the third period in Washington on Oct. 8.
“I would certainly say the first goal was my responsibility,” said Valiquette, who failed to stop Brad Staubitz on a two-on-one following a Donald Brashear neutral-zone turnover. “That caused a snowball in a negative way for us.
“Hank [Henrik Lundqvist] and I have to keep the ball rolling, and that particular goal didn’t help us at all.”
Valiquette, making his first start since blanking the Ducks on Oct. 11, was pulled after surrendering five goals on 18 shots in two periods. Would John Tortorella have pulled Wade Redden, Dan Girardi, Brashear, Brian Boyle and perhaps Chris Higgins and Marc Staal from the affair as well? The Rangers lacked presence around their net, and though Tortorella dismissed the deficiency, their lack of toughness on defense finally cost them.
So again did the penalties, beginning with a Higgins hook with a 2-0 lead and a Redden high-stick when it was 2-1. The Blueshirts were shorthanded seven times, making it 42 times in their last seven matches and 49 times in nine matches overall for the third worst per-game number in the league (5.4), better than only Carolina (5.9) and Anaheim (5.6).
“If guys don’t stop taking them, then they are going to lose some ice time along the way,” said Tortorella. “That’s my biggest frustration.
“You talk about momentum swings and things like that; it just wrecks the flow of the game.”
Sean Avery picked up his first two penalties of the season, one bogus and one senseless. Brashear, Prospal and Marian Gaborik took penalties over the final 40 minutes as the 7-2-0 Rangers allowed more than three goals for the first time.
“Hopefully this puts it in perspective as to what can happen when we take bad penalties,” said Drury. “Torts didn’t say much to us tonight, but I imagine he will on Wednesday.”
