Rangers vs Lightning: Lightning Blast Rangers 9-3 in Tampa Bay
The New York Rangers....didn’t exactly have their best game of the season tonight as they were blasted 9-3 by the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Rangers gave up four goals within the first seven minutes of the game and were faced with very early deficit that was nearly impossible to overcome. To make matters a little worse, Jacob Trouba left the game in the second period with an upper-body injury, and Kaapo Kakko was a late scratch due to an illness.
The Rangers have certainly had better days, but tonight certainly wasn’t one of them. Just 2:39 into the first period, Luke Schenn gave the Lightning their first an only lead of the night after a wrist shot from the blue line found its way through traffic. About three minutes later, Tampa Bay turned their level of play up quite a bit and rattled off three goals within 61 seconds. Alex Killorn picked up the second goal with a deflection in the high slot and made it a 2-0 lead for the Lightning.
Nikita Kucherov picked up the primary assist on Killorn’s goal, and registered a goal of his own just 40 seconds later with an absolutely sniper over Alexandar Georgiev’s right shoulder. Ondrej Palat closed out the early scoring barrage for Tampa Bay after beating Adam Fox 1-on-1 and slipping the puck past Georgiev on the short side.
Chris Kreider finally stopped the bleeding for the Rangers late in first period after deflecting home a great stretch pass by Artemi Panarin. Things went from bad to worse for the Rangers during the second period and Tampa Bay added another four goals onto their already enormous total. Steven Stamkos, Pat Maroon, Kevin Shattenkik and Alex Killorn all picked up goals for the Lightning during the middle frame and they led the Rangers 8-1.
Filip Chytil added a pair of goals in the third period to bring his total to six on the season since his recall. Following tonight’s beating at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Rangers will have a scheduled off day tomorrow before closing out their road trip against the Florida Panthers on Saturday evening.
