The kids may be fine, but the Rangers need their veterans to win.
Coming from a game in which their young core led the team to at least one point in a shootout loss against the Penguins, the Rangers finally saw a life out of their group of veterans, but not enough as they fell with 3-2 in front of the same team. Sunday night in Pittsburgh.
“Our veterans know they need to be better, there’s no doubt about that,” said head coach David Quinn after the loss, which reduced the Rangers to 1-3-1. “I spoke to them privately, they acknowledged this, I know that. The good news is that these are guys who are well-established players in this league and are good players. The good news is that our young players continue to grow and play good hockey against some very good players. ”
But the Rangers lost one of their most important youngsters in the middle of the second period, when 21-year-old Filip Chytil collided with Evan Rodrigues. He hit the ice hard and rose slowly before heading to the locker room with what the team said was an upper body injury. Quinn has not had any updates on Chytil since the match.
The Penguins, again, came from behind when they erased a 2-1 deficit to start the third period with goals from Jared McCann and Jake Guentzel. Despite a 2-2 lead in the final, the Rangers were unable to capitalize and eventually gave up the winner of Guentzel’s game, with about 1:30 left on the clock.
“We can sit here and talk about some of the good things we’ve done and the chances we’ve had in the third period,” Quinn said. “But you have to win hockey games, you have to find a way to win. A guy can’t get a shot from that area with a minute and 30 departure. You have to have an emergency, you have to know who is dangerous and even disappointing.
“Coming here and playing some good hockey and coming up with a point is really disappointing.”
For the second game in a row, the 20-year-olds were the only players to keep the Rangers competitive. Debutant defender K’Andre Miller split the game, set up his teammates in a hurry and played Sidney Crosby in the corners to keep the Rangers in the game.
Defender Adam Fox, a sophomore, extended his points streak to four games when his shot from the top of the box was redirected to 16:36 from the first period by fellow Harvard Colin Blackwell, who was promoted. from the taxi crew earlier in the day to debut in the Rangers.
The new fourth line of Blackwell, Brett Howden and Kevin Rooney generated some of the Rangers’ most dangerous opportunities.
Even though Ryan Strome recorded his first point of the season when he overturned a puck that jumped over Penguins netminder Tristan Jarry to break a 1-1 tie at 17:17 in the second period, Rangers Pure and they simply needed more than the first six to make a profit.
“We know our roles, we know our responsibilities, we just didn’t get there,” said Mika Zibanejad, who had two shots on goal. “You can’t just lie down and feel sorry for yourself, you just have to work hard and get started.”
The only youngster at Rangers who was not in charge of his game was rookie goalkeeper Igor Shesterkin, who gave up 16 of the 19 shots he faced in his first start-to-back of the season.
However, the Rangers had one of their best first periods of the season, taking a 1-0 lead over Blackwell at 16:36. But Bryan Rust managed to equalize him in a breakaway more than halfway through the second period with his second goal in as many games against the Rangers.
“Obviously you get up with nothing, you feel good about it, but I thought we were really careless for about 12 minutes in the second period,” Quinn said. “You could feel it, I knew they would have one.”