Rangers can't handle Bruins, who win seventh in a row

The Rangers got an up-close look at the NHL’s top team Thursday night at Madison Square Garden and found out what many other teams already have learned for themselves:

The Boston Bruins are really good.

Still without key players Charlie McAvoy and David Krecji, the Bruins nevertheless had enough to stop the Rangers’ winning streak at three games. Boston scored four goals in the third period for a 5-2 win to improve to 10-1, the best record in the NHL. The Bruins have won seven straight.

“They’re a good hockey team,’’ Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said. “They move the puck, they play hard, they play a good, solid game. That’s why they’re 10-1.’’

The Rangers, wearing their reverse retro Lady Liberty jerseys for the first time this season, lost defenseman Ryan Lindgren to an upper-body injury midway through the first period, leaving them to play the last 50 minutes or so with only five defensemen.

“It was a tough loss, losing Lindy on our back end,’’ defenseman Braden Schneider said. “It was a lot of minutes [for the other five defensemen]. But we’ve got to battle through. They’re a fast team, and they come hard.’’

Boston outshot the Rangers 37-20, and Gallant said it looked as if his team “ran out of gas’’ in the third period.

The score was tied at 1-1 entering the third period when Charlie Coyle won a battle with Jacob Trouba at the back post, got his stick free and jammed in a pass from Hampus Lindholm to give the Bruins a 2-1 lead at 2:56.

Adam Fox beat goalie Linus Ullmark with a long shot at 3:44 for his third goal of the season to tie it at 2-2.

Trent Frederic put Boston back in front when he whipped a pass from Nick Foligno past Igor Shesterkin (32 saves) at 6:04. Jake DeBrusk converted a two-on-one break at 10:19, connecting on a one-timer from the right circle faceoff dot off a pass from Pavel Zacha. Lindholm finished it with an empty-net goal at 19:02.

The Rangers (6-4-2) were especially physical in the first period and Lindgren hit a couple of guys, one of them David Pastrnak, who retaliated by hitting Lindgren hard when he didn’t have the puck. Pastrnak was called for an interference penalty at 5:07 of the period, but the Rangers didn’t manage a shot on goal on the power play.

Lindgren played two more shifts after that hit but left the game with 9:14 remaining in the period. Pastrnak then gave the Bruins the lead at 12:53 of the period with his eighth goal of the season, collecting the rebound of a shot by Zac Jones that was blocked, racing up the left wing and beating Shesterkin with a bad-angle backhand shot from the bottom of the left-wing circle.

The Rangers, who were outshot 11-4 in the first period, took control in the second and tied it at 1-1 on a pretty goal by Jimmy Vesey at 10:21. Vesey, who had just jumped onto the ice, accepted a pass from Schneider that he pushed forward into the offensive zone for Mika Zibanejad to collect along the right- wing boards. Vesey beelined to the net and Zibanejad sent a pass through a maze of bodies to the back post, where Vesey tapped it in for his first goal of the season.

The MSG crowd got excited when Schneider lined up Frederic just inside the Rangers’ blue line and dropped him with a clean, heavy hit. Frederic’s linemate, A.J. Greer, fought Schneider, and then, as that fight was winding down, Frederic fought the Rangers’ Barclay Goodrow. The Rangers ended up with a power play after all that as Greer was given an instigator penalty, but they failed to score.

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.