The New York Rangers are coming off their most humbling defeat of a promising season start while the Columbus Blue Jackets are coming off their ugliest showing of the opening weeks and a continuation of their rough start on penalty kills.
Both teams will be seeking vastly better showings Saturday night when the Rangers visit the Blue Jackets.
New York is off to a 6-3-0 start and had not allowed more than three goals until Thursday when it took a 7-1 loss in its visit to the New Jersey Devils. The Rangers were held to two goals or less for the fourth time so far and were derailed by an ugly second period.
After allowing the first goal in the final minute of the opening period, the Rangers gave up three in the opening 4:39 of the second period and four overall in the middle period.
Most of New York’s key players were on the ice for the rough showing. Adam Fox, Alexis Lafreniere and J.T. Miller played while the team allowed four even strength goals while Pavel Dorofeyev, Mika Zibanejad and Vladislav Gavrikov were on the ice for three even strength goals.
“It’s a humbling experience when you go through games like this,” New York coach Mike Sullivan said. “Nobody wants to live through those types of experiences, but what I will tell you is, is when you go through a humbling experience like this, it forces all of us to look in the mirror and make sure that we bring the right intentions and try to respond the right way.”
The Rangers took a season-high 23 penalty minutes and were held to 19 shots on goal. New York also gave up a season-high 31 shots on goal in rookie Dylan Garand’s roughest game as an NHL goaltender.
Columbus is hoping to avoid a third straight loss after getting outscored 12-6 in defeats to the St. Louis Blues and Florida Panthers.
The Blue Jackets have had two practices since their 7-3 loss to the Panthers on Tuesday and are hoping to turn in some better penalty killing.
Columbus allowed four power-play goals for the 11th time in team history against the Panthers. The Blue Jackets have allowed seven power-play goals on 18 opportunities for a 61.1% penalty killing percentage, third-worst in the NHL ahead of Los Angeles and Vancouver, and their performance infuriated coach Rick Bowness.
“You gotta believe that performance will embarrass them enough to stop this, right?” Bowness said after the loss to Florida. “Because if they’re not embarrassed by that, we don’t want them on the team. Simple as that.”
Columbus allowed four goals in the second period and six straight goals after Kent Johnson scored in the first period. The Blue Jackets have been outscored 18-8 in second and third periods so far and will show a different alignment for their top two lines when they face the Rangers.
Valeri Nichushkin was moved up to the top line with Adam Fantilli and Kent Johnson while Matthew Knies moved from the top line to second line with Sean Monahan and Conor Garland.
“Our start hasn’t been good enough,” Fantilli told reporters at practice. “We know how important these games are at the end of the season, so I don’t think it’s an overreaction by any means. We have to be better. We know we have to be better.”
