First Period:
- Drake Batherson (5) Assists: Jake Sanderson (3), Artem Zub (2)
- Tim Stutzle (8) Assists: Fabian Zetterlund (4), Claude Giroux (6)
Second Period:
- Drake Batherson (6) Assists: Dylan Cozens (4), Jordan Spence (2)
- Will Cuylle (4) (Shorthanded) Assists: Noah Laba (3), Adam Fox (15)
- Dylan Cozens (1) Assists: Drake Batherson (5), Carter Yakemchuk (2)
- J.T. Miller (3) Assists: Adam Fox (16), Oliver Bjorkstrand (2)
- Alexis Lafreniere (9) Assists: J.T. Miller (6)
Third Period:
- Jake Sanderson (1) Assists: Ridly Greig (2), Michael Amadio (3)
- Pavel Dorofeyev (3) Assists: Will Cuylle (4), Noah Laba (4)
- Drake Batherson (7) (Empty Net) Unassisted
Stats:
Adam Rotter:
- With the way the Rangers were playing the first half of this game it made you wonder why to start last season the Rangers were terrible at home and good on the road and this season was the opposite. The result itself still makes you think that but the Rangers never quit, kept battling back and nearly tied it a couple of times in the third before Ottawa took the lead. The Rangers pushed again and got within one, and Alexis Lafreniere hit the post, but it just wasn’t enough.
- There are no moral victories and the Rangers lost this game because they were terrible in the first half of the game, but you just hope that how they played late in the second and the third is how they can play going forward.
- The other big talking point that was going to come out of this game was how Pavel Dorofeyev lost his spot in the top-six and he was shifted down to play with Noah Laba and Will Cuylle….but it worked. Dorofeyev played his best hockey of the game after being moved down and then he finally rifled home a shot to score. He will need to find his way in the top-six at some point but if playing with Laba and Cuylle can get him going for now then that is where he should stay.
- The PP continues to disappoint and with how tough it seems at time for the Rangers to score, they need the PP to get going.
- They did not bounce back after a lackluster defensive game with a strong defensive game like they did last Saturday against Columbus. This was another style of game that the Rangers are going to struggle to win. They lacked the structure they need to play with and Dylan Garand was again fine, but “fine” isn’t good enough when the Rangers play this way in front of him.
- With Garand, I think the Rangers are hoping to just get through Monday against LA before they have the rest of the week off until Edmonton comes on 11/1. Hopefully they can play better at home against a struggling LA team, score some goals, give Garand a bit of an easy game and then time off to recover from this workload. It hurts that the Rangers won’t give Spencer Martin a start. James Reimer had a shutout last night in Hartford where he’s on a PTO. I’m not sure at this point if Reimer is a tremendous upgrade over Martin, but if Reimer plays well in Hartford next week then it wouldn’t be a shock if they bring him up.
- I don’t think it will make a huge difference, but why not play Matt Rempe? And Scott Morrow hasn’t played all season and the Rangers can’t send him to Hartford without waivers. They could put him on a conditioning stint to at least get him some games over a short period of time. Matthew Robertson was called up and I wonder if the Rangers are going to play him a game or two and let Alberts Smits sit and watch.
- Overall it was a game where the Rangers just weren’t good enough, especially at the start. They chased the game the whole way, played their best in the third and came close to tying it but couldn’t. The Rangers are built to play a certain, structured game and when they can’t it’s going to be tough.
- It’s just so strange that the home/road thing from last year has flipped. Luckily for the Rangers their next four games are at home, but at some point the road games are going to start piling up and they need to figure things out there.
- Peter Laviolette, and Artemi Panarin, return to MSG on Monday with LA.