Rangers rally from three-goal deficit but lose to Canadiens in shootout

MONTREAL — This was one the Rangers were supposed to win easily, without any muss or fuss or stress.

Instead, three minutes into the second period, the Blueshirts trailed by three goals against the still-rebuilding Canadiens. They needed to throw a season-high 48 shots on Montreal goalie Sam Montembeault to fight their way back and force overtime, and eventually a shootout.

All that work was enough to earn only the loser’s point, though. Montembeault stopped all three shots in the shootout and Cole Caufield beat Jonathan Quick to score the only goal in the tiebreaker, giving the Canadiens a 4-3 win Saturday night at the Bell Centre.

Afterward, the message in the Rangers’ locker room was that even down 3-0, they were never out of the game — and that this was a point won as opposed to one lost.

“We weren’t playing that bad,’’ Adam Fox said. “We were getting chances. We were just giving them a few too many Grade-A looks, and they scored on some of them. So yeah, we battled back hard, and we’d love to get two points. But, you know, we worked for that point.’’

They earned it because Fox scored his first goal in 20 games, firing a shot through a crowd that may have deflected off a defender to tie it at 3-3 at 9:30 of the third period. He had last scored Oct. 28 in Vancouver, and he said getting a goal did lift some weight off his shoulders.

“Yeah, a little bit,’’ he said. “It would have felt good to get it in a win, but like I said, goals could — especially for a defenseman — be a little random.

“I obviously got a fortunate bounce there. But I think for me, I don’t want to pressure myself into thinking ‘you haven’t scored in a while, go cheat for that offense, or look for that.’ But I think anyone will tell you it feels good to get one in, for sure.’’

After Fox’s goal, Montreal had  two glorious attempts to go back in front before the end of regulation,  but a shot by Jake Evans hit the post with 7:11 left in regulation and a shot by Mike Matheson ring off the crossbar with 4:04 left.

The overtime was a wild, back-and-forth affair, with Quick making two saves and Montembeault making four — two of them on shorthanded attempts by Mika Zibanejad and Jacob Trouba as the clock was running out and the Rangers were killing a penalty taken by K’Andre Miller with 11.1 seconds left in OT.

The Rangers (26-10-2) have done so well in overtime this season that it almost seemed like a foregone conclusion that once the game went beyond regulation, they would win.

But in the shootout, Montembeault stopped Artemi Panarin — who had scored his 25th goal in the second period — Zibanejad and Montreal native Alexis Lafreniere. Quick stopped Nick Suzuki and Jesse Ylonen, but Caufield, the second shooter for Montreal (17-17-5), beat him for the winner.

“I like our chances in a shootout most nights,’’ said Vincent Trocheck, who scored the Rangers’ first goal at 10:28 of the second period and set up Panarin’s goal at 14:29 with a faceoff win on a set play. “We have some pretty outstanding shootout numbers, so going to a shootout, I like our chances. [We have] Quickie back there, too. He played great. We just couldn’t win it for him.’’

Montreal got goals by Brendan Gallagher at 11:37 of the first period and Sean Monahan at 1:09 and Joel Armia at 2:39 of the second period.

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.