First Period:
- Colin Blackwell (1) Assists: Brett Howden (1), Adam Fox (4)
Second Period:
- Bryan Rust (2) Assists: Sidney Crosby (3)
- Ryan Strome (1) Assists: Artemi Panarin (4), Jacob Trouba (1)
Third Period:
Ad
- Jared McCann (2) Unassisted
- Jake Guentzel (2) Assists: Kris Letang (3), Sidney Crosby (4)
Filip Chytil did not play late in the second or in the third after a second period collision.
Stats:
Adam Rotter:
- Another game where the Rangers played well enough to win, had a lead going into the third and then lost.
- There were other chances where the Rangers could have built a lead, but the chance Artemi Panarin had in the third period where he forced a pass to Alexis Lafreniere, instead of shooting, stings. Panarin is more of a passer than a shooter, but he’s been trying to force too many passes to start this season. He’s been good and been putting up points, but he hasn’t been as dominant, so far, as he was last season.
- This was Alexis Lafreniere’s best game of the year. He had the puck and you could see his confidence building with some of the passes he was making. It was also nice to see him shoot the puck early on. K’Andre Miller also continues to do nothing but impress.
- To win most nights, the Rangers will need a save when it matters. Igor Shesterkin has been ‘fine’ to start this season, but they need him to make the big save when a mistake is made in front of him. The Rangers didn’t make a ton of mistakes tonight, but the ones that they did ended up behind Shesterkin. You have to think that Alex Georgiev will start against the Sabres.
- Mika Zibanejad has looked off since he was hurt late in the Devils game. Chris Kreider has been struggling, Tony DeAngelo doesn’t look confident with the puck, Jacob Trouba’s been up and down and so far this season the Rangers need more and consistent production from them.
- So the Rangers pick up one point out of the three or four they should have and now head to Buffalo. As the Rangers showed last year, you are only one winning streak away from being back in the mix and that is the case. I think they will get on that streak at some point, but to do that they are going to need the guys that carried them for a lot of last year, Kreider, Zibanejad, DeAngelo, Strome to be much better and for Panarin to elevate his game. The young players have been great to watch and you can see game by game that they are getting better, but for this team to succeed and really make a playoff run, they need their big guys to carry them.