By Jim Cerny, newyorkrangers.com
On Thursday night in Ottawa, the Rangers benefitted from a bad-angle goal in the third period en-route to a 5-3 victory over the Senators.
On Saturday evening in Columbus the Rangers were on the other end of a bad-angle score late in the game, as they dropped a 3-1 decision to the Blue Jackets, which snapped their four-game road winning streak.
“I thought we played well and it was probably one of our better games the past few weeks,” said Rangers head coach John Tortorella. “We played our (butts) off, but came up empty. It’s frustrating.”
Rick Nash, playing in his franchise-record 544th game with the Blue Jackets, scored the game-winning goal from below the goal line at 14:51 of the third period to snap a 1-1 tie. From near the right wing corner Nash fired the puck towards the front of the net and somehow it caromed off Henrik Lundqvist’s skate and into the net for his 15th goal, giving Columbus its first lead of the game.
“I hugged the post as hard as I could, but there will always be a little hole there and he managed to find it,” Lundqvist said. “It’s just a tough way to lose the game. It’s a really frustrating loss.”
To that point Lundqvist had been locked in a goaltenders’ duel with Steve Mason. Both netminders had been very sharp all night long. As it was, Lundqvist still finished with 20 saves, while ...
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STAT OF THE GAME
This was one of few 2010-11 games that saw the Rangers score the first goal of a game yet not get a victory. They are now 14-5-1 when scoring first. The .700 winning percentage is well ahead of last year's .617 mark.
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| (selected by newyorkrangers.com) |
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| 1. R. Callahan |
2. Marc Staal |
3. M. Gaborik |
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