Rested Rangers lose ugly one to Blue Jackets

Anything can happen on any given night with any NHL team, but sometimes there are games that fall under the should-win category — and Sunday’s against the Blue Jackets was probably one of those for the Rangers. 

The Rangers, whose previous game was on Thursday, fell 5-1 to a Columbus team that was playing on the second night of a back-to-back with their rookie backup goaltender in net at Madison Square Garden. The lopsided score may not be indicative of how the game actually played out, but it was indicative of how the Rangers’ frustrations get in the way when the puck isn’t going in the back of the net. 

“We were far from good enough,” coach Gerard Gallant said after the loss, which dropped the Rangers’ record to 3-2-1. “We were slow. I didn’t like the way we played. I like our team being an aggressive forechecking team, and I didn’t see much of that. I thought we were a step behind all night from a team that played back-to-back games. Disappointed with that.” 

Columbus jumped out to a 3-0 lead less than halfway through the game on goals from Zach Werenski, Andrew Peeke and Yegor Chinakhov. The Rangers’ offense has cooled off since it outscored opponents, 17-12, through the season’s first four games, which was a testament to their scoring prowess making up for some loose defense. 

But now that the goals aren’t coming as consistently, the Blueshirts haven’t been as decisive with the puck lately and it’s disrupted the offensive groove they had going. 

“I didn’t like the body language of our players, I really didn’t like it,” Gallant said. “You could see that. We were talking to the linesman more than we were talking about our teammates. Let’s just go play the game. We’re big boys. 

“We had some chances to get back in it, when it was 3-1, we had a couple real good chances early in the third and didn’t bury it. It just seemed to get away from us.” 

The Rangers did lose Filip Chytil early in the first period and had to skate with 11 forwards for the majority of the game, after the third-line center took an elbow to the head from Blue Jackets forward Cole Sillinger. That jumbled up the lines and likely played a role in the Rangers’ inability to get much rolling offensively. 

Gallant even sent out a unit featuring Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad and Kaapo Kakko, which logged 4:43 of ice time together, to try and spark something. But, as the coach put it, the Rangers looked like the team that had played back-to-back games. 

It was also far from goalie Jaroslav Halak’s best showing at the Garden — and there have been many memorable nights for Halak against the Rangers. In his first start at home as a Ranger, however, the backup netminder gave up five goals on 22 shots to fall to 0-2 on the season. 

The one goal Halak will probably want back came on Peeke’s 2-0 tally just under two minutes into the middle frame, when the shot just squeaked under his arm. 

“I’m not going to talk about our play, I’m just going to talk about myself,” said Halak, who was particularly hard on himself in his postgame interview with reporters. “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.”