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    • Rangers lose on a dramatic opening night to Utah
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    Rangers lose on a dramatic opening night to Utah

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    NEW YORK – It only took two games for the Rangers to make our heads spin.

    After a hoity-toity, drama-free win to kick off the new season Wednesday in Pittsburgh, the Blueshirts took us for a wild ride in Saturday’s home opener at Madison Square Garden. They came from behind three times, but still fell short in a 6–5 overtime loss to the newly formed Utah Hockey Club.

    Will Cuylle, who was in the thick of the action all night, sent the game to overtime by scoring with 7:04 left in regulation time, but Clayton Keller finished off New York with 54.9 seconds left in OT. The Rangers rued their defensive lapses and costly mistakes.

    “We’re creating offense, but we have to keep the puck out of our own net,” veteran Chris Kreider said. “We have to help our goaltender.”

    It was a much different feeling than Wednesday’s 6-0 win over the Penguins, which included plenty of shaky moments as goaltender Igor Shesterkin went from an opening night shutout to 20 saves on 26 shots.

    Matt Rempe: Rangers are releasing the big rookie for Saturday’s home opener

    A few of the shots the 28-year-old netminder slid will certainly stick in his memory, but most of Utah’s goals were the result of what head coach Peter Laviolette commonly calls “loud” scoring opportunities.

    “I don’t think we’ve given up defensive volume,” he said. “It wasn’t like we gave up 50 shots and ‘X’ number of chances. I just thought we could have been a little cleaner defensively, a little tighter.”

    “We’ve been talking about it all morning,” he said. “The skill they have, the speed they have. They are dangerous. They are extremely dangerous. They have now scored 16 goals in three games, so they know how to create. I really think that if we do something If we could have tightened up situational issues, it could have been different.’

    Chaos in the second period

    The first period was eventful enough, with Barrett Hayton taking advantage of a positional miscommunication from the newly formed defensive pair of Braden Schneider and Jacob Trouba and a lackluster backcheck from Alexis Lafrenière for an easy backdoor goal that gave Utah a 1-0 lead at the 3:43 mark point. Rangers took the lead less than five minutes later after Artemi Panarin’s first goal of the season, a vicious wrister set up by a nifty drop pass from Lafrenière in transition. But that was nothing compared to what would happen in the middle twenty minutes.

    The second period featured a little bit of everything: crazy bounces, controversial calls, some ferocious fights that brought the MSG crowd to its feet and left at least one of the competitors bloodied, and much more.

    “It was a back and forth,” Adam Fox said. “Penalties will do that sometimes. Five against three and things like that sometimes make a period a bit strange, but we fought hard when we went down.”

    New York and Utah combined for seven goals in a span of 16:11, including Panarin’s second of the night (and of the season) – “I felt so much better tonight than in the first game,” said No. 10 – and a hard-to-explain count from K’Andre Miller, who tried to get the puck along the boards that somehow ricocheted past the goal line and into Utah’s net.

    But the team formerly known as the Arizona Coyotes won the wild period by a 4-3 margin, with their goals coming from Jack McBain, Keller, Kevin Stenlund and Dylan Guenther.

    Keller’s broke a 2–2 tie at 6:02 after Alex Kerfoot rushed to take a puck from Miller behind the Rangers net, with Stenlund pushing the Utah lead to 4–2 a few minutes later. That was probably the most frustrating goal of the evening for Shesterkin, who had a good look at the shooter but was struck past his left arm at the near post.

    Adam Edström fights, gets sent off

    Miller’s crazy goal cut New York’s deficit to 4-3 with 10:42 left in the period, but it was quickly followed by a slew of penalties. It started with a fight between one of the newest Rangers, Sam Carrick, and Michael Kesselring, but their fight was quickly overshadowed when a second fight broke out between rookie Adam Edström and McBain.

    Edström celebrated his 24th birthday by hitting the Utah center with some heavy blows to the head, proving that Matt Rempe isn’t the only Blueshirt rookie who knows how to throw. But the battle proved costly. Due to dropping the gloves after Carrick and Kesselring had already started exchanging punches, both Edström and McBain received game misconduct penalties and were ejected from the match.

    Controversial calls

    The whistles continued to come at a feverish pace, with a few nuisance calls from the goalkeeper drawing the ire of Rangers (and the home crowd).

    They were less bothered by the first, which came at 4:54 of the first period. Rookie defenseman Victor Mancini appeared to score the first goal of his NHL career, but the officials immediately waved it off while reporting that Rempe had interfered with Utah goaltender Connor Ingram.

    “Remps doesn’t really get the benefit of the doubt on a lot of things,” Fox said. “I thought he got out of the crease in time.”

    Rempe, who finished with a team-low 3:40 on-ice time, has certainly drawn extra attention from officials since bursting onto the scene last season with a slew of fights and booming hits, but replays showed he was in the crease like Mancini. to shoot. So while, yes, the call may have been a bit soft considering the minimal contact, it wasn’t completely out of line either.

    “We have to stay out of the paint,” said Laviolette, who challenged the decision and lost, resulting in a game delay penalty. “We require our players to get to the paint, and then we want them to stay out of it. It’s a fine line. He’s fighting for position there too. So I think he was in there for a while, and then I I think he started moving out. The back of his heels just crossed the line, but I didn’t see much contact.”

    The more egregious call against the Rangers came at the 11:27 mark.

    Cuylle raced Utah defenseman Mikhail Sergachev to a loose puck that goalie Connor Ingram simultaneously rushed out of the net to make a play, with all three players colliding. The contact seemed inevitable, but Cuylle was still called up due to interference by the goalkeeper.

    That was the biggest headache breaker of the evening.

    “I didn’t see anything,” Laviolette said. “I saw Will battling with someone else (Sergachev) for a puck. If you really slow it down, both players hit the goalie. The goalie is 15 yards out from the net. … To me, that was incidental contact.”

    Just 1:09 later, Miller was assessed a high-stick penalty, giving Utah a five-on-three lead.

    The Rangers were 39 seconds away from killing both penalties when Nick Schmaltz pulled the defense and lofted a pass to Guenther for a one-timer that pushed Utah’s lead to 5-3.

    Another impressive evening for the third line

    Schneider blasted his way through the Utah defense to cut the deficit to 5-4 with 2:01 left in the interminable second period, putting the Rangers within striking distance for the third.

    They played a cleaner game in the last twenty minutes, with Cuylle, Filip Chytil and Kaapo Kakko in the third line in the middle of the drive for the equalizer. They were New York’s most effective trio for the second straight game, with all three skaters finishing with plus-three ratings as they defeated Utah 10-3, outscoring them 15-6, according to Natural Stat Trick .

    Cuylle was in the thick of that effort with the tying goal, an assist and a team-high five hits. The 22-year-old now has three points (one goal and two assists) in two games and is throwing his weight around with authority.

    His skating was noticeable, which helps him cause forecheck disruption, and he does a lot of his damage from high-risk areas. That’s where his goal came from on Saturday, when he got to the front of the net to receive a pass from Kakko and then deflected home a rebound attempt from Fox.

    “They bring energy,” Kreider said of the third line. “They’re getting pucks in. They’re getting bodies in, and they’re creating opportunities.”

    Vincent Z. Mercogliano is the New York Rangers beat reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Read more of his work at lohud.com/sports/rangers/ and follow him on Twitter @vzmercogliano.

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