Rangers lose third straight, flame out in Calgary in first game of long road trip

CALGARY, Alberta — On Thursday, the Rangers faced the last winless team in the NHL, San Jose, and  lost in overtime.

On Sunday, they started their longest road trip of the season against the team at the very bottom of the league standings, the one-win Calgary Flames, who had lost eight straight.

And things went from bad to worse.

The Flames, the lowest-scoring team in the league with 16 goals in their first nine games (1.78 per game), scored twice in the first 10 minutes and rode that fast start to a 5-1 victory at the Scotiabank Saddledome.

“They were more ready to play than we were,’’ captain J.T. Miller said. “And I don’t want to make this bigger than it is, [but] the last couple games .  .  . we’re getting outplayed in the first period of the game. So I mean, if we can come out ready and just start from there and not try to fix 1,000 things, maybe it will be better.’’

Miller, who seemed angry after the San Jose loss, was calmer after this one. He insinuated after Thursday’s game that perhaps the Rangers had not given San Jose enough respect and looked past them. That wasn’t the case Sunday, he said.

“Today, absolutely not,’’ he said. “We were ready to go. We were chomping at the bit to get this road trip started. And then it’s so frustrating to come out flat on the road when you know that they just need a win, and so do we. That’s the frustrating part.’’

It was the third straight loss (0-2-1) for the Rangers, who are 1-4-2 in their last seven.

Calgary (2-7-1) got two goals from Blake Coleman, including a shorthanded effort, and one each from Nazem Kadri, Kevin Bahl and Yegor Sharangovich. Dustin Wolf made 30 saves as the Flames won for the first time since opening night.

Igor Shesterkin made 25 saves for the Rangers (3-5-2). Their only goal came from rookie Noah Laba, who scored his first NHL goal. They remain in   last place in the Metropolitan Division as they head to Vancouver   for Tuesday’s return of Miller to the team that traded him to the Rangers at the end of January.

“Obviously, we’re not at our best right now, and we’ve got to find a way to dig our way out of it,’’ coach Mike Sullivan said. “I just think it starts with effort and attention to detail on the defensive side .  .  . I thought tonight, the types of mistakes we made, they’re egregious. They’re really hard to recover from. And we gave them some pretty good looks as a result.’’

It was in this building that the Rangers’ season went off the rails last season.

Eleven months ago, the 2024-25 Rangers were off to a 12-4-1 start. They had won the first two games of their Western Canada trip before being badly outplayed by the Flames in the third game a week before Thanksgiving. They were outshot 20-5 in the first period and Jonathan Quick made 46 saves in a losing effort.

Two nights later, they were blown out in Edmonton in the final game of the trip. That was the start of a five-game losing streak and the 4-15 skid that destroyed their season.

On Sunday, the Rangers were back at the scene of the crime, kicking off this year’s Western Canada trip. And they quickly fell behind 1-0 after Kadri took a pass from Jonathan Huberdeau in the top of the right circle and lifted a shot over Shesterkin’s glove 1:42 into the game.

The lead went to 2-0 when Bahl’s shot from the blue line beat a screened Shesterkin at 9:21 of the period, but 10 seconds later, Laba scored. He won the ensuing faceoff, took a pass off the left boards from Will Cuylle, cut to the slot and beat Wolf to the glove side to get the Rangers within 2-1.

The Rangers were better in the second period, but Calgary went up 3-1 at 12:28 when Brennan Othmann’s three-on-two shot/pass to Laba near the right post was too hard for Laba to handle, the Flames came back the other way on a two-on-two break and Sharangovich scored from the low slot off a pass from Connor Zary. Shesterkin got a piece of Sharangovich’s shot with his glove but couldn’t prevent it from trickling over the goal line.

After Mika Zibanejad fanned on a shot from the left circle and the Flames got out on a two-on-one break, Coleman scored shorthanded at 6:42 of the third. He passed across to Mikael Backlund, who passed back across to Coleman, who tucked it in behind Shesterkin.

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.