The New York Rangers will look to bounce back quickly after a short rest when they travel to play the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday.
The Rangers are aiming for redemption after a 3-2 loss on Friday to the Pittsburgh Penguins, who were missing Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
New York had 1-0 and 2-1 leads, thanks to goals from Vincent Trocheck and Adam Fox, but the Penguins scored twice in the second period and held on for the win.
Trocheck also got an assist in the loss, and Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin stopped 23 of the 26 shots he faced.
Rangers center Mika Zibanejad, who didn’t record any points in the game, said after the match, “I think it’s just in general our first two periods are not very good and we dig ourselves a bit of a hole and then we have to try to climb out of it again in the third. We were unable to do that today, so (we) can’t just rely on the first and third period to win the game.”
New York was outshot 26-17 in the first two periods, but despite not allowing any shots in the third period and getting seven shots of their own, they couldn’t find the equalizer.
The loss ended a two-game win streak for New York, and they will look to head into the 4 Nations Face-Off break with a win in Columbus.
The Blue Jackets come into this game after three straight losses (0-2-1), following a three-game win streak. Their most recent loss was 4-3 to the Utah Hockey Club on Thursday, when Dylan Guenther scored in overtime.
Columbus defenseman Ivan Provorov scored for the third game in a row, while Justin Danforth scored his first goal in 19 games.
Columbus Blue Jackets players celebrates after a goal“There’s no excuses for us,” Danforth said after the game. “We pride ourselves on being a consistent team. I felt like we were there for most of the night but just not good enough.”
Before Thursday, the Blue Jackets had won five straight games at home. They have had one of the best home records in the NHL this season, with a 17-5-4 mark.
A big reason for this success has been the play of Zach Werenski. With an assist against Utah, Werenski extended his home point streak to 20 games (13 goals, 24 assists), making him just the fourth defenseman in NHL history to do this.
In addition to extending his point streak, Werenski also set a new club record for points in a season by a defenseman with 58 points (17 goals, 41 assists). He had 57 points (11 goals, 46 assists) last season, matching the club record set in 2017-18 by Seth Jones (16 goals, 41 assists).
The Rangers have won six of their last eight games against the Blue Jackets. In their only meeting this season, New York defeated Columbus 1-0 in a shootout on Jan. 18.
