[ad_1]
DETROIT – The answer is no, the Rangers do not have enough good feeling leftover to easily absorb this one.
That was exemplified when Henrik Lundqvist jumped into the crossbar after his Rangers blew a two-goal lead in the third period and Dylan Larkin scored the game-winner with 5.1 seconds remaining in the 3-on-3 overtime to give the Red Wings at 3-2 victory on Friday night at Little Caesars Arena.
The loss snapped the Rangers' four-game winning streak and left Lundqvist pretty darn upset in this season of rebuilding, which has not even reached Thanksgiving.
"We played really well for a big part of this game," Lundqvist said. "But this one hurts. … Yeah. "
Of course it hurts, because the Rangers (7-7-2). Despite being a club that is focused on the future, they still believe they are good and can continue to win games. And they were doing that, opening their eyes with two shootouts in California followed by two more victories at the Garden earlier this week.
Rangers did, treatment a 2-0 lead as if it did not exist – and the mistakes were appalling and aplenty.
"Just how we wilted," David Quinn said was most disappointing. "You think we learned so much, and we just cheated the game. When you cheat the game with a 2-0 lead, you get that result. We got to learn lessons. We've got to learn lessons. You can not cheat the game. "
After the Red Wings (6-8-2) won for the fifth time in their past six games, Quinn more explained exactly what he meant by cheating the game.
"When there's a 50-50 puck, we're thinking offense. Making 'hope' plays when we do not need to. Forcing plays. Did not spend enough time in the offensive zone when we got into the offensive zone, we tried to score a goal immediately instead of possessing it and understanding the situation, "Quinn said. "You do not want to play safe, but you want to play smart. We did not do that. "
The game changed dramatically early in the third period, when Brendan Smith made his move to the side of his net, allowing Justin Abdelkader to score and cut the Rangers' lead to 2-1 at 1:36.
"Their first goal changes everything," Quinn said. "Just changes everything."
The Rangers kept giving the Wings of Opportunity, and they eventually get paid off in a while. Athanasiou burned everyone up the left wing and beat Lundqvist with a tidy backhand with just 2:02 remaining in regulation.
Afterward, when someone started to ask Quinn if it was similar to something, he cut the question off.
"THE.? It's exactly what happened against L.A., "he said, referring to the tying goal against the Kings on Oct. 28 in the game that immediately preceded the winning streak. "We come on the ice and we stand in the neutral zone and they walk up the ice."
The game had started with the Rangers all over Detroit, forcing the Red Wings to turn the puck over like crazy. Jimmy Howard's goal was his regular Jimmy Howard Against the Routine Rangers, eventually stopping 28-of-30 shots. The only two times we were screened we have a four-minute power play late in the second period, when both Kevin Shattenkirk and Neal Pionk got long shots to go in during a span of 40 seconds. It was the third game in which the Rangers scored twice in a minute.
"It's hockey. If you expect the game to look the same way for 60 minutes, I do not think you've watched a hockey game before, "Lundqvist said. "It's going to happen. It's just frustrating the way it happened. "
When Larkin then scores by finishing a nice crossing feed from Athanasiou just before the overtime horn sounded, the frustration boiled over for those still-learning Blueshirts, who have to put it behind them Saturday night's game in Columbus, Ohio.
"We cheated," Quinn said. "Our mindset cheats and we got what we deserved."
Source link
