Adam Fox leaves with injury in Rangers' loss to Blue Jackets

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Everything has gone the Rangers’ way this season. All it takes is one instant for their good fortune to reverse itself, though, and the Blueshirts hope that moment didn’t happen Thursday night at Nationwide Arena.

Reigning Norris Trophy winner Adam Fox left the Rangers’ 5-3 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets one shift into the third period after an awkward collision against the boards with Blue Jackets defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov.

Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said after the game that Fox had suffered an upper-body injury and that his status is day-to-day.

"I’m sure it’s a minor injury,’’ Gallant said. "It’s not like he left with a serious injury.’’

The defenseman is second on the team with 47 points (seven goals, 40 assists), one point behind Artemi Panarin (12 goals, 36 assists).

The Rangers will play the Minnesota Wild on Friday night at Madison Square Garden on Henrik Lundqvist Night, and the former goaltender will have his No. 30 retired to the Garden rafters. Whether Fox will be able to play remains to be seen.

The loss dropped the Rangers into a three-way tie for first place in the Metropolitan Division with the Carolina Hurricanes and Pittsburgh Penguins. All three have 60 points, but the Blueshirts have played one more game than Pittsburgh and four more than Carolina.

The Rangers (28-12-4) had won their first two games against Columbus this season and were looking to sweep the Blue Jackets. But they trailed 4-2 when they lost Fox, and not having him severely compromised their efforts to tie it.

Mika Zibanejad’s power-play goal at 7:12 of the third period pulled the Rangers within 4-3, but they couldn’t get the tying goal. Jacob Trouba hit the post with 10:48 remaining and Joonas Korpisalo made the save on a tip-in attempt by Julien Gauthier 48 seconds later. The Blue Jackets’ Sean Kuraly scored his second goal of the game into an empty net with 1:14 remaining.

The Rangers took an early 2-0 lead on goals by Panarin and Barclay Goodrow, but Columbus scored four straight goals and took a 4-2 lead after two periods. Late in the second, Gallant tweaked the lines, replacing Gauthier at right wing on the top line with Alexis Lafreniere.

Panarin, the former Blue Jackets star who left Columbus to sign with the Rangers as a free agent in the summer of 2019, scored on his first shift of the game to put the Rangers ahead at 1:49. Goodrow made it 2-0 at 4:44, redirecting a shot/pass by Braden Schneider past Korpisalo for his career-high ninth goal.

But Gallant said even with the lead, the Rangers weren’t in control of the game. "We let them back in,’’ he said. "We get up 2-0 and then it seemed like we stopped playing a little bit.’’

A minute and five seconds after Goodrow’s goal, Gustav Nyquist drove the net and knocked in Patrik Laine’s pass with his skate for his 14th goal of the season.

Then, with Goodrow serving a tripping penalty, Boone Jenner deflected Zach Werenski’s shot past Alexandar Georgiev (14 saves) at 7:28 for his first of two goals.

"We’ve got to be better," Gallant said. "And [in] the second period, we came out and there wasn’t a good enough push . . . They dictated the play more than we did tonight.’’

Kuraly, left alone in the slot on a defensive breakdown, redirected a shot past Georgiev at 6:18 of the second period and Jenner added his second of the game to make it 4-2 at 12:27.

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

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.