Rangers Vs. Bruins Recap: Third Period Collapse Costs Rangers Two Points In Boston
The New York Rangers lost their second straight game this afternoon after giving up two late third period goals to the Boston Bruins.
Same result, different game.
After putting up a pretty good fight against the Boston Bruins this afternoon, the New York Rangers collapsed in the third period and gave up two goals in the final four minutes. The Rangers defensive zone woes continued to haunt them once again, and led to both Bruins goals late in the game. In addition, the Rangers will be without Derek Stepan for the immediate future as he broke his ribs on blatant late hit from Matt Beleskey midway through the second period.
Much like last game, the Rangers were under some early pressure from the Bruins and were out-shot to the tune of 12-7 after twenty minutes. As a result, the Bruins were able to grab a 1-0 lead late in the first period coming from a Patrice Bergeron shot through traffic. The puck appeared to take a deflection off of Oscar Lindberg's skate and just barely squeaked in between Henrik Lundqvist's legs to give the Bruins the lead.
Early in the second period, the Rangers responded extremely well after a poor start in the first period, and scored two goals within the first five minutes of the period. The first goal came courtesy of Oscar Lindberg, who made an excellent power move to the front of the net, and ripped the puck past Tuukka Rask. A few moments later, it was Rick Nash converting on his eight goal of the season, and toasted Rask with an unreal move at the top of the crease.
At that point, things were starting to look good for the Rangers, then Matt Beleskey introduced Derek Stepan to the boards with a dirty hit. Somehow, the Rangers ended up on the penalty kill after Dylan McIlrath was assessed 17 penalty minutes for coming to Stepan's aid, and the Bruins came out of ahead. As if the non-call wasn't bad enough, the Bruins eventually converted on the ensuing power play, and knotted the game up at 2-2.
Thankfully, J.T. Miller was able to put the Rangers back on top midway through the third period, and gave the Rangers a 3-2 lead with 11 minutes remaining. However, a late game penalty by Jesper Fast put the Bruins back on the power play, and Ryan Spooner pulled them back even again with four minutes remaining.
Following the tying goal, the Rangers were completely disorganized in the defensive and couldn't clear the zone. As a result, the Bruins added on another goal coming from David Krejci, which eventually went on to be the game winning goal. The Rangers attempted a late game push with the goaltender pulled, but couldn't muster up any chances in the offensive zone.
That is now the Rangers second straight loss, and it was also a pretty costly one with Stepan going down with broken ribs. The Ranges will have to forget about this one pretty quickly as they will be back in action tomorrow afternoon against the Philadelphia Flyers.
