Rangers lose to Senators in shootout
It was there on a platter. The surging Rangers, who had won five games in a row and seven of eight, had an opportunity to move within a point of sixth place in the Eastern Conference.
But they fell just short.
Erik Karlsson scored the lone goal of the shootout in the fifth round Thursday night as the Ottawa Senators beat the Rangers, 2-1, at the Garden.
The point, however, put the seventh-place Rangers (40-30-5, 85 points) four ahead of the Sabres and seven ahead of the ninth-place Carolina Hurricanes with seven games left. Sixth-place Montreal lost to the Bruins, 7-0, but the Rangers gained a point on the Canadiens and are two behind them.
"We don't play many bad games," coach John Tortorella said. "Tonight was one of them . . . We steal a point. You take it, stuff it in your back pocket and move by this."
Five Rangers failed to solve Craig Anderson in the shootout: Erik Christensen, Mats Zuccarello, Wojtek Wolski, Brandon Dubinsky and Ryan Callahan. Henrik Lundqvist stopped the first four Senators.
The Rangers, who play their next four games on the road, said being extended to a shootout against the team with the fewest points in the East should never have happened.
"We didn't play with near the desperation we needed at this time of year," said Callahan, whose stick snapped on his shootout attempt. "I know we have a little bit of a cushion, but that's no excuse. We had no second or third effort. We didn't sustain a forecheck. We're fortunate to get a point."
With the Rangers trailing 1-0 after two lackluster periods, Brandon Prust's wrister beat Anderson and tied the score at 2:45 of the third. Defenseman Marc Staal, in his first game back after missing two with an undisclosed injury, was taken down by Chris Phillips at mid-ice, but he managed to slide the puck to Prust, who scored his 12th of the season from the right circle.
"It was just us sleeping," Rangers forward Vinny Prospal said. "We didn't have energy to create anything. We battled back to tie the game. It's the only positive."
In their previous two meetings, the Rangers outscored the Senators 9-4, but the Rangers went 0-for-2 on the power play and couldn't convert a four-on-three in overtime.
Ryan Shannon hit the twine with a cross-ice pass from Bobby Butler at 15:21 of the second period to give the Senators a 1-0 lead on their 16th shot of the game.
The Rangers had just killed an Ottawa power play after Senators forward Jesse Winchester was high-sticked by Wolski at 12:58. During that sequence, a stickless Lundqvist, who made 29 saves, stopped Karlsson at the right post.
For the second consecutive game, the Rangers scored only one goal.
"We can't expect to score four or five goals," said Lundqvist, who started his 19th straight game. "We've been working so hard, so if you drop a little bit, you can see it. We have scored two goals in two games and got three points. I'm happy we came back. It looked pretty dead the first two periods.
"It's going to be a tough one Saturday [in Boston]. Hopefully, facing a really good team is going to re-energize us to raise our game."
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