Rangers Vs. Lightning Recap: Late Shorthanded Goal Ends Rangers Winning Streak At Nine

The streak ends at nine.

The New York Rangers lost their first game in over a month tonight, and it came at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning. A late third period goal against while on the power play was the Rangers downfall tonight, as they fell by a final score of 2-1. Aside from the late game blunder by Derek Stepan and Ryan McDonagh, the Rangers actually played a fairly competitive game tonight. However, the Lightning were sporting a ton of injuries tonight with the likes of Ryan Callahan, Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, and Jonathan Drouin all missing the game tonight.

Henrik Lundqvist didn't face a whole lot of action in this game, but when he did, he made several key saves to keep this game close. After trading chances early in the first period, the Lightning were able to take advantage of a horrific turnover coming from Keith Yandle. Yandle attempted to clear the puck through the middle of the ice, but Valtteri Filppula knocked it out the midair and kept the puck in the zone.

Alex Kilorn picked up the puck in the high slot, and ripped a quick wrist shot between the defenseman right around the hashmarks. Lundqvist had full vision of the puck as it came on net, but he simply whiffed on the shot and allowed Tampa to make this a 1-0 game. Following the goal, the Rangers responded with several strong shifts in the offensive zone, but they just couldn't find a way to break through.

That continued for much of the second and third periods, until Dominic Moore finally broke the shutout with under six minutes remaining in regulation. Anton Stralman misplayed the puck in the corner, and it kicked right out to Moore off to the side of the net. After a slick move to the middle of the ice, Moore slipped the puck past Ben Bishop on the shortside and knotted this game up at 1-1.

Shortly after tying the game up at one, Brian Boyle was sent off for interfering with Viktor Stalberg on the rush, and gave the Rangers a power play with 1:30 remaining. This was a huge opportunity for the Rangers, however, things went south real quick right off of the ensuing faceoff. Derek Stepan sent a hard pass back out to Ryan McDonagh at the point, but the captain was unable to handle the pass with that much heat on it.

J.T. Brown was able to chip it up the ice, and created a 2-on-1 the other way with Valtteri Filppula flanking him on the right side. Despite McDonagh getting back in time to catch Brown, he was unable to stop the cross-ice feed over to Filppula, and the Lightning took a 2-1 lead. It was an absolutely deflating goal to give up given the circumstances, and the Rangers were unable to rebound with a 6-on-4 advantage for the final 50 seconds.

With the winning streak now officially broken, the Rangers will have a day off tomorrow before meeting up with the Florida Panthers on Saturday night.