CHICAGO – Coming off back-to-back overtime losses against two of the elite teams in the NHL in Colorado and Vegas, the Rangers were feeling pretty good about themselves coming into this matchup against a struggling Chicago team that had lost its last two games by an aggregate score of 13-1.
But in a battle of Original Six teams both celebrating their Centennial season, those good feelings turned sour after the Rangers got embarrassed by Connor Bedard and his mates inside United Center on Wednesday. Bedard had a goal and an assist, and goalie Spencer Knight made 21 saves to earn his second shutout of the season as Chicago (13-11-6) thrashed the Rangers, 3-0, snapping the Blueshirts’ four-game point streak.
“I thought from the drop of the puck they were quicker. They were quicker to pucks,’’ a dejected Rangers coach Mike Sullivan said. “They played with more urgency. [And] just to put it in context, they had a couple of tough games going into this, and everybody in this league is proud. And we knew they were going to come out with urgency, based on the circumstance around surrounding their team. And we didn’t match the urgency from the drop of the puck.’’
“All of the stuff that we’ve done and that we’ve talked about, none of that happened today,’’ an angry Mika Zibanejad said. “It’s just disappointing. I could waste your time trying to make it sound good or kind of — it’s just bad. It’s a bad game.’’
After Igor Shesterkin made 10 saves – more than a few of them of the Grade A variety – to help keep the first period scoreless, a flub by Zibanejad led to a shorthanded goal by Chicago defenseman Louis Crevier that gave the home side the lead at 7:08 of the second.
With the Rangers (15-13-4) in the five-forward power play they’ve used since Adam Fox went on long-term injured reserve Nov. 30 with an upper-body injury, Zibanejad whiffed while trying to pass the puck across from the right point to the left. Then he fell down, allowing Chicago forward Ilya Mikheyev to get the puck.
Zibanejad got up quickly, and poked the puck away from Mikheyev, and J.T. Miller got a piece of it, too, sending it back into Chicago’s zone. There, Matt Grzelcyk got it and flipped it out to Crevier, all alone, up ice by the right boards. He corralled the puck, cut to the middle and beat Shesterkin (22 saves) to put Chicago up 1-0.
After that mishap, Sullivan made a change to the power-play unit, elevating rookie defenseman Scott Morrow to play the point on the first unit for the two power plays the Rangers had in the third period, but the damage was already done.
Chicago appeared to take a 2-0 lead on a goal by Ryan Donato at 10:38 of the second, but the Rangers challenged the goal, alleging there had been a hand-pass by Chicago before the goal. The challenge was upheld, but Bedard scored his 19th goal of the season at 14:27 to make it 2-0 for real.
Despite Sullivan saying before the game that the Rangers would need to be aware of Bedard whenever he was on the ice, the 20-year-old somehow was wide open at the right point and allowed to skate unchecked up the middle of the ice to bang in a pass from Andre Burakovsky.
“We had numbers back,’’ Sullivan said, searching for an explanation as to why Bedard was so alone. “But the closer the puck and people get to our net, the tighter we’ve got to be to people, to defend them… We didn’t defend it the right way. We gave him too much space, and he doesn’t need a lot of space.’’
Tyler Bertuzzi’s rebound goal at 3:52 of the third period made it 3-0. The Rangers had two power plays after that, but neither accomplished much in the effort to come back.
“It’s disappointing, because we just go through a stretch where we play some of the — what we would deem some of the best teams in the league, and we put a game in the ice that’s pretty damn competitive,’’ Sullivan said. “And we’ve got to be able to do that consistently, night in and night out. And that’s our challenge. We took a step back tonight. We didn’t bring that game.’’
Notes & quotes: The Rangers placed LW Adam Edstrom, who missed the previous four games with a lower-body injury, on long-term injured reserve… D Urho Vaakanainen and RW Taylor Raddysh were the scratches… The first episode of “The Road to the Winter Classic’’ aired on TNT Wednesday, featuring the Rangers and Florida Panthers, who play in the Jan. 2 Winter Classic in Miami.
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
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