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This was the kind of game that puts the big picture in perspective.
The Rangers aren’t in the same class as the Oilers, a fact made abundantly clear in a 4-1 loss to the Western Conference leaders Sunday night at Madison Square Garden. Forget class: The disparity in the two clubs’ brand of hockey exemplified just how far the Blueshirts have veered from the cohesive team game needed to break into the playoffs.
Here was an Edmonton team competing on the second night of a back-to-back slate with a 32-year-old goaltender in net who hadn’t played in the NHL in over 2 ¹/₂ years.
The Rangers, on the other hand, were coming off a five-day break in game action — albeit without star goaltender Igor Shesterkin and second-pair defenseman Sean Durzi.
And yet, the Oilers operated as an effective five-man unit from start to finish while the home team struggled to counter.
Dylan Garand put the loss entirely on himself in his postgame media scrum, an admirable declaration from the rookie goalie but not a completely accurate assessment.
“I just felt like I was overthinking a little bit there,” Garand said of getting blitzed by Connor McDavid less than a minute into the game. “Honestly, I felt really, really good in the second 30 minutes, and I thought my first 30 minutes was awful. Honestly, inexcusable. Let the guys down. Pretty disappointing, put that loss on me.”
It’s certainly not groundbreaking to say that Edmonton has way more firepower and talent than the Rangers. Prior to the Rangers win in Edmonton last season, the Oilers had won four straight meetings dating to December 2023.
The circumstances surrounding this matchup, however, exposed how little such factors matter when the match boils down to a sizable gap in the two teams’ games.
Edmonton owned the neutral zone Sunday night, turning turnovers into offense and wreaking havoc at the blue line to disrupt whatever the Rangers were attempting when they had the puck.
The Oilers essentially cruised to their 11th the win of the season, improving to 7-0 on the road and 11-2-2 overall.
Limited to five shots on goal in the first period, the Rangers faced a two-goal deficit for the third straight game.
The Rangers were painfully aware of their need to start Sunday’s game on time, especially given their performance in the past handful of first periods and their five-day break from game action.
It took only one shift from McDavid to recognize that the Rangers were not ready.
Flying down the right side of the rink with the kind of speed only No. 97 has, McDavid whizzed right around Vladislav Gavrikov and chipped the puck by Garand just 50 seconds into the game.
Though it was Garand’s introduction to the best player in the world, in his 10th consecutive game, the 24-year-old netminder reacted a second late just under 5 ¹/₂ minutes later. A turnaround shot from Colton Dach beat Garand five-hole to put the Oilers up 2-0 just 6:19 after the puck was dropped.
“I don’t think the start was terrible by any stretch,” head coach Mike Sullivan said. “Just from an energy standpoint or even a momentum standpoint, I felt like the guys had the right intentions. The first goal is a tough one. McDavid is a unique player. [When] he ramps up speed like that, he’s hard to stop.”
After Evan Bouchard’s first goal was overturned for goalie interference in the opening 20 minutes, the Oilers defenseman scored on the power play nearly halfway through the middle frame.
The Rangers might have started putting the puck on net more as the game went on, but it was hardly enough to combat the Oilers’ consistent level of play.
Pavel Dorofeyev scored another goal — his fourth in 15 contests — in a game that already felt out of hand.
The most noticeable moment of the night for J.T. Miller was when the captain’s frustrations boiled over as he slammed his stick against the boards while going for a change.
The Rangers took ill-advised penalties at horrible times, either negating a power play or giving Edmonton a two-man advantage.
It was the kind of in-game recipe that wouldn’t produce success against most NHL teams, let alone against against one with the Stanley Cup aspirations of this Oilers team.
The Rangers couldn’t appear further from that realm, skating off the Garden ice with their four-game losing streak in tow.
