Henrik Lundqvist pulled in Rangers' loss to Stars
Henrik Lundqvist of the Rangers looks on after surrendering a goal during the second period against the Stars at Madison Square Garden on Monday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Clearly, the Dallas Stars are a level or two higher than the Detroit Red Wings.
Coming off their weekend sweep of a home-and-home with lowly Detroit, the Rangers opened a four-game homestand Monday against the Stars, and things didn’t go nearly as well.
Henrik Lundqvist, who pitched a shutout Saturday in Detroit, was pulled after allowing four goals in two periods and was replaced by Alexandar Georgiev as the Rangers lost, 5-3.
The score was tied at 2 after a wacky first period that featured four power-play goals, but Dallas got two goals in the second period and took firm control of the game. Lundqvist exited after allowing four goals on 15 shots.
“I just thought we really got deflated after we gave up the third goal, for some reason,’’ said Rangers coach David Quinn, whose team outshot the Stars 36-21. “It really was a tale of two games for us. I really liked what we were doing up to that third goal, and then we really got away from all the things we had been doing, and need to do, if we’re going to have a chance. [We] hold on to the puck too long; [we were] cheating, not being physical enough. You name it, we weren’t good in many areas after they got that third goal.’’
Said Lundqvist, “We made some mistakes and unfortunately I wasn’t able to clean that up a couple times there. We had a stretch there, after the third goal, we gave up a lot of odd-man rushes and kind of got away from it a little bit.’’
Pavel Buchnevich, subbing for Chris Kreider — who missed the game with an upper-body injury suffered Saturday — scored for the Rangers at 2:29 of the first period on a shot from the left-wing boards that somehow got by Dallas goalie Anton Khudobin. But Dallas took the lead with two power-play goals from Joe Pavelski in a 16-second span.
Pavelski tipped in a shot by John Klingberg at 8:08. The Rangers challenged, arguing that a previous shot by Tyler Seguin had gone off Lundqvist’s stick and then the goalpost, ricocheted over the glass and rebounded onto the ice off the protective netting above the glass. Had they been correct, play would have been ruled dead at that point and the goal would have been disallowed.
After a long delay, the referees ruled against the Rangers, who were charged with a delay-of-game penalty.
“We thought it was 100% out, and obviously we had an angle they apparently didn’t see, or there was a discrepancy,’’ Quinn said. “We thought for sure [the goal] was going to get called back, but we were wrong.’’
On the ensuing power play, Pavelski scored at 8:24 as the Stars took advantage of a bad pass by Ryan Lindgren. Jamie Benn ended up with the puck behind the net and fed an onrushing Pavelski in the slot for a one-timer.
The Rangers tied it on a power-play goal by Brett Howden at 15:41 that initially was ruled no goal. Kaapo Kakko fired a shot that deflected up off a stick, hit Brendan Lemieux in the shoulder and popped into the air. Howden batted the puck down with his glove and swept it across the goal line.
Referee Trevor Hanson initially ruled no goal, saying Howden had batted the puck in, but upon review, it was determined that Howden had knocked the puck with his stick before it crossed the goal line, so the score was tied at 2-2.
But the Stars got second-period goals from defenseman Stephen Johns at 7:52 and Blake Comeau, on a wrist shot from the left faceoff dot, at 11:56.
Corey Perry scored on a rebound to put Dallas ahead 5-2 at 5:27 of the third period before Lemieux’s power-play goal at 13:17 closed out the scoring.
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.
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