The Rangers finally put together a strong start to a game, but it was the finish that was lacking this time.
Despite scoring two early goals in one of their better first periods lately, the Rangers allowed the Blue Jackets to waltz right back into the game before ultimately falling, 5-3, on Thursday night at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.
The loss dropped the Rangers into a first-place tie in the Metropolitan Division at 60 points apiece with the Hurricanes and Penguins, though Carolina has several games in hand on both clubs.
“We get up 2-0 and then seemed like we stopped playing a little bit,” head coach Gerard Gallant said. “Overconfident, or whatever it was, I don’t know. We let them right back in the hockey game and then they took the momentum.
“We didn’t get the momentum back until our third goal in the third period and we had a push there, but we didn’t play the way we should have played for 60 minutes and it cost us two points.”
Aside from being on the wrong end of a come-from-behind rally, the Rangers also lost Adam Fox early in the third period after the 23-year-old defenseman awkwardly fell into the boards on a hit from Blue Jackets defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov. Gallant didn’t sound overly concerned with the severity of Fox’s injury, labeling him “day-to-day” with a minor upper-body injury.
The Blue Jackets scored four straight goals after the Rangers built a 2-0 lead in the opening 20 minutes. Whether it was to make up for the 6-0 thrashing they received at the hands of the Flames on Wednesday or their will to avoid a third straight loss, Columbus played hungry and pounced on every Rangers mistake.
Max Domi found Sean Kuraly all alone in front of Rangers goalie Alexandar Georgiev to give the Blue Jackets their first lead of the night at 6:18 of the second period. A rare turnover from Fox then led to Boone Jenner’s second tally of the game for the 4-2 score.
The power play gave the Rangers some life in the third period when Mika Zibanejad’s one-timer from the faceoff circle cut the deficit to a goal. Columbus’ Jake Bean gave the Blueshirts another prime opportunity after he took his second penalty of the period shortly after, but Columbus netminder Joonas Korpisalo robbed Julien Gauthier on the Rangers’ best chance on the man-advantage.
Kuraly’s second goal of the night with the Rangers’ net empty sealed the win for Columbus.
“Two-goal lead there, it’s something you don’t want to give up, especially that quickly or that easily,” Jacob Trouba said. “Got away from [our game] a bit and then showed some fight in the third period. Just came up short.”
With Kaapo Kakko on injured reserve due to an upper-body injury and Filip Chytil still day-to-day with a lower-body injury, Gallant has had an even more top-heavy lineup to work with than usual. The Rangers coach rode his top guys heavily, using the bottom six rather sparingly, particularly in the first period.
Alexis Lafreniere, who logged 12:20 in the loss, replaced Gauthier on the top line next to Zibanejad and Chris Kreider beginning in the middle frame and into the final period. That trio ended up skating 4:24 together, per Natural Stat Trick.
“You know what, your players aren’t going to be ready every night to play their best game,” Gallant said. “And tonight I think there was three guys that I was really happy with and the rest of guys were below what they usually are. That was the biggest thing for me.”
