Rangers are not gaining ground with a two-goalie strategy

There must be more than you see – or maybe, in this case, the ear – to David Quinn’s explanation of why Rangers went with Alex Georgiev in the net on Saturday against the Penguins instead of returning directly to Igor Shesterkin. performance in Thursday’s overtime victory in Buffalo.

“Obviously, circumstances have changed here since last year without Hank [Lundqvist] here, ”the coach said. “I just thought for the short term we were going to go all the other [game] with these guys for a while, and see how it goes, no matter how they play, and give them a little clearer picture and maybe a little more reassurance as to when and who’s going to play.

“So I don’t know how long we’re going to do this, but it will be the short term approach.”

Georgiev was not up to par in this one, giving up five goals on 38 shots in a 5-4 overtime loss at the Garden in which he may not have been the main culprit but couldn’t do enough to earn it. The Bulgarian-born goalkeeper has recorded three consecutive starts with save percentages of 0.800, 0.875 and 0.868, respectively.

Here they are, 2-4-2 in their first eight games, unable to protect the leads in the third period, and now the Rangers lack a No.1 goalie. Right now, and it’s still too early. , although the coach notes that the club have “two good goalkeepers”, there is no apparent heir to the king.

Georgiev gave up the tying goal at 9:20 of the third on a rebound from a second try from the post by Jake Guentzel. There have been too many loose rebounds surrendered by Georgiev, who seems unstable and haphazard rather than economical and in control.

“I’m sure Georgie would want one or two,” Quinn said in what becomes a familiar refrain.

The Rangers have taken the lead in the third period in four of their last five games. They blew the lead in each of them, managing to win one in overtime while losing one in regulation and two in overtime – this one hits Sidney Crosby’s drive from the slot machine at 2:27 with Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad working on two minutes. changes.

The Blueshirts have also failed to score a third-period goal in their last five games, beating 5-0. Maybe the team doesn’t have the mental discipline or the commitment to carry out their plan for 60 minutes. Maybe they don’t get enough critical stops and game saves that were so routine for much of a decade and a half. The Rangers are not playing winning hockey.

It was a tough business with lots of ice cream wide open. Maybe that prompted the Rangers to try and make do with a pond hockey mark in the third period, and not a very good mark, either. The Penguins, who played with five defensemen after Kris Letang left the game midway through the first period, were in control for the final 20 minutes of regulation having retained much of the opening 40 minutes.

This display seemed to infuriate Chris Kreider, who had his biggest game of the year.

“We showed what we can do in spurts, we understand what we need to do to be successful, and then they upped the intensity a bit in the third period and all of a sudden we pull away and start to to go. east-west instead of advancing zones, “said the No.20” You don’t win at the NHL level by doing that.

“No team in the league can just throw their sticks out there, play east-west and try to steal their way to win. You have to go north at some point. There is not enough space, there is not enough time, you have to make their D turn and dig washers out of the corners. It seemed like a lot of fun to them in the third period.

Brendan Smith – along with partner Tony DeAngelo for the first three five-on-five goals in Pittsburgh, including one on which Kasperi Kapanen backed him for a breakaway – was not sniffed in the third period.

DeAngelo, by the way, has sort of been on the ice for nine of the Rangers’ 16 goals conceded in evenly working 82:50. We have already recognized the impact of Lundqvist and Jesper Fast’s absences on the team. Is it possible that Marc Staal, partner of n ° 77 a year ago, is also missed?

The Rangers couldn’t get any traction. They couldn’t build their game. But building a game usually starts from the nets. Uncertainty abounds on the ice.

But there is one thing we can be sure of. It will be Shesterkin in front of goals on Monday for the rematch.