Rangers Fall In Overtime For Second Straight Night
After falling to the Philadelphia Flyers in overtime just 24 hours ago, the New York Rangers were defeated 3-2 by the New York Islanders, yet again in overtime. In terms of action, this game came off rather boring during the first period, with neither team getting much sustained pressure in the offensive zone. That left us scoreless after 20 minutes, and both teams combined for 15 total shots on goal.
Finally, at the 16:42 mark of the second period, the Rangers broke the scoreless drought and took a late 1-0 lead. Following some great puck movement between Marc Staal and Nathan Gerbe, Chris Kreider tipped the puck at the top of the crease and deflected it past Jean-Francois Berube.
It took nearly 40 minutes to find the first goal of the game, and barely after Kreider opened the scoring, Cal Clutterbuck immediately answered for the Islanders. The goal came off of a fortunate bounce in front of the net after Clutterbuck knocked the puck in off of Dylan McIlrath’s skate.
Unfortunately, Clutterbuck didn’t stop there and he eventually gave the Islanders their first lead of the night later on in the third period. This time around it came with the man-advantage after Marc Staal missed his assignment by channeling his inner snow angel. Most people will blame Dylan McIlrath for getting beat, but he did his job by keeping the play to the outside and forcing a bad-angle shot.
The Rangers quickly battled back and found the equalizer about four minutes later, as Nicklas Jensen tallied his first goal of the preseason. Chris Kreider created the entire goal with a beautiful cross-ice feed right on the tape, and allowed Jensen to quickly one-time the puck before Berube was set.
Neither team was able to find the net after Jensen’s goal, and for the second straight night, we were destined for overtime. For a majority of the opening minutes, the Rangers had the clear cut advantage, but they were unable to finish off their quality scoring chances. Eventually that came back to hurt them, as the Josh Bailey slammed home the game-winning goal with 22 seconds remaining in overtime. Antti Raanta had trouble handling Dennis Seidenberg’s point shot, and the puck landed right in the crease for an easy tap-in.
Following tonight’s overtime loss, the Rangers will have one game left on their preseason schedule, which will take place on Thursday night against the Philadelphia Flyers. The Rangers are also expected to make a big round of cuts at some point tonight, so be sure to stayed tuned here for an update.
Thoughts?
