By Jim Cerny, newyorkrangers.com
The Rangers survived a poor first period on Sunday against the Ottawa Senators, but could not find a way to pull out a victory in the third period once they had righted themselves, and ended up dropping a 3-1 decision at Madison Square Garden.
Ottawa’s Chris Kelly scored all three goals for the visitors, including the game-winner with 2:24 remaining in regulation and an empty-net score with less than a second left on the clock. His teammate, goaltender Pascal Leclaire, also turned in a big-time performance, finishing with 25 saves for a Senators team that earned its first win in four games.
As good as Kelly, Leclaire, and the Senators were on Sunday, all the Rangers focused on following the game was their own lackluster start in the game’s first period.
“The guys were asleep the first 20 minutes, but I thought we played better in the second and third periods,” said Rangers head coach John Tortorella. “Why were we asleep? I don’t have any answers for that.”
Ottawa dictated play and pinned the Rangers back in their own end of the ice for most of the first period. The Sens had the Rangers back on their collective heels right from the first shift of the contest, when team captain Daniel Alfredsson had a glorious scoring chance from in front after only a few seconds had elapsed on the game clock.
Henrik Lundqvist made a sharp save on Alfredsson’s shot and ...
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STAT OF THE GAME
The Blueshirts’ penalty kill held the Senators scoreless in one power play opportunity and have yielded just four goals in their last 17 games (46 for 50, 92.0 percent) while scoring five shorthanded goals during the stretch.
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| (selected by newyorkrangers.com) |
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| 1. H. Lundqvist |
2. B. Prust |
3. Fedotenko |
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