By Jim Cerny, newyorkrangers.com
On Friday night at the Pepsi Center in Denver, a second-period collapse by the Rangers turned what had been a close contest into a 5-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche.
After playing a fairly even and scoreless first period on the road, the Rangers were stunned by the home team’s avalanche of goals -- four in total -- in the middle 20 minutes. So complete was Colorado’s domination that Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist was lifted from the game 12:27 into the second period with the Avalanche having just taken a 3-0 lead.
That marked the first time this season Lundqvist had been removed from a game. He allowed three goals on 16 shots, although blame for the Rangers’ woes on Friday night was shared by the entire team.
“Their forwards were better than our forwards; their defense was better than our defense; and their goaltending was better than our goaltending,” Rangers head coach John Tortorella said flatly after the game.
Colorado’s David Jones beat Rangers’ defenseman Michael Del Zotto to a rebound in Lundqvist’s crease and batted home the first goal of the game just 64 seconds into the middle period. The goal came off a 2-on-2 rush with Chris Stewart firing a high, hard shot from right wing that handcuffed Lundqvist, who could not control the rebound after fending off the initial shot.
Three minutes later, a key turning point occurred in the game. Avs center Matt Duchene was sandwiched near the Rangers net ...
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STAT OF THE GAME
The Blueshirts' penalty kill held the Avalanche scoreless in one power play opportunity (2:00) to improve to 96.0% (24-25) in their last eight games, yielding just one goal against and tallying two shorthanded goals during the stretch.
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| (selected by newyorkrangers.com) |
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| 1. D. Stepan |
2. M. Gaborik |
3. M. Sauer |
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