Recap: Blue Jackets sink Rangers, 5-1
Halak has a rough outing against a Metropolitan division rival
Let’s start with the positives: Artemiy Panarin scored a power-play goal to keep his scoring streak alive.
With a goal against his former team, Panarin notches his 12th point of the szn pic.twitter.com/2fnRdeDWAd
— Shayna (@hayyyshayyy) October 23, 2022
That’s fun, right? Gosh, he is good at hockey. Panarin already has 12 points — isn’t that wild!? Anyway, that’s pretty much it for the positives because the Rangers lost this one 5-1, giving Daniil Tarasov his first NHL win.
All in all, it was an extremely frustrating game to watch for the Blueshirts. Jaroslav Halak was by no means the only reason the Rangers were blasted 5-1 but he definitely had a poor game, giving up at least two that any goalie at this level would want back. At the end of the day, five goals allowed on 21 shots just is not going to cut it. Filip Chytil leaving the game 11 seconds into his first shift as a result of a hit is just one more reason why this is one of those games you want to erase from your memory.
Filip Chytil is day-to-day with an upper body injury, per Gerard Gallant.
— Mollie Walker (@MollieeWalkerr) October 23, 2022
The #NYR coach didn’t think the hit was malicious.
The good news on Chytil is that the injury doesn’t look serious — Mollie Walker is reporting that he is day-to-day. Another sliver of good news is that Vitali Kravtsov was in the lineup, though he finished with 11:33 TOI. Still, it was nice to see him on the ice with the second power-play unit. I hope he gets to stick in the lineup and build his confidence back up.
There really isn’t much more to say here. Tarasov stopped all 23 shots he faced at evens and Panarin’s goal came on the power play. The Blue Jackets had a few bounces go there way and they finished on their chances, including one or two that really didn’t feel that perilous until the puck was behind Halak and the goal light flashed red. Columbus scored all five goals at EV, by the way. Jacob Trouba and K’Andre Miller were on for 3 GA, and Braden Schneider and Zac Jones were on for 2 GA.
#NYR Jaroslav Halak: "I'm not going to talk about our play, I'm just going to talk about myself. I just got outplayed by their goalie. I need to be better next game and hopefully down the road I can help the guys win some games and get some points. That wasn't my best tonight."
— Mollie Walker (@MollieeWalkerr) October 23, 2022
Six different Blue Jackets had two-point games — it wasn’t Jonny Gaudreau who beat the Rangers. It felt like the Blueshirts made things too easy and squandered too many opportunities to beat a goalie who really earned every bit of his first NHL win.
On to the next one, which is going to be a lot harder to win than the last two games. The Colorado Avalanche are in town on Tuesday for an 8:00 p.m. showdown and on Wednesday the Rangers will be on the road to play the New York Islanders.
