ANAHEIM — Adam Fox makes it a practice not to say too much but No. 23 pretty much said it all after the Rangers somehow blew a two-goal lead within the final six minutes of the third period only to lose in overtime to a Ducks team out of the playoffs.
“Good teams do not lose a game like that,” Fox said after Mason MacTavish’s redirection in front at 0:59 gave the Ducks the 5-4 victory after it had been 4-2 the other way. “These were the two points we needed.
“I mean, just inexcusable in the third period.”
Could the losers’ point more accurately describe with what the Rangers came away from this one after dropping to 3-7-2 over their last dozen games?
The consolation prize leaves the team in a three-way tie with Montreal and Columbus at 75 points and one ahead of the Islanders, but the Blueshirts have nine games to play while the Canadiens have 10 and the Jackets and the other New York club have 11 to go.
But as Jim Mora once said, “Playoffs? Playoffs?”
Who loses a game like this?
The Rangers do.
And the Rangers did so even after putting on one of their better performances in a stretch over the first 50 minutes. The Blueshirts were on their toes.
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They took the game to the Ducks and grabbed a 4-2 lead at 4:35 of third when Mika Zibanejad’s power play goal ended an 0-for-15 drought over eight games after the club had killed off an 43-second two-man Anaheim advantage.
But the special night devolved into debacle. The Blueshirts were awarded four more power plays over the next 12 minutes that included a five-on-three for 1:36. Nothing happened.
Then the Ducks happened. Cutter Gauthier crashed the net to put in a rebound off Igor Shesterkin’s pad at 14:12 to cut the lead to 4-3 on a rush play where coverage was soft.
And then Olen Zellweger snapped one up top off another rush where coverage was faulty to knot it at 4-4 at 18:15 before Anaheim could even pull their goaltender for an extra attacker.
The 4-3 goal came immediately after a failed Rangers power play. So did the 4-4 goal.
“I don’t think that it was a whole momentum thing in terms of being hemmed in our zone,” Zibanejad said. “They had a couple of rush chances and capitalized on them.
“How many power plays did they kill off? They were still in the game and they made the most out of it. We couldn’t close the game.”
Shesterkin, starting his career-high ninth straight game and the 16th of 18 contests since 4 Nations, was nimble and quick through nearly all of the match.
But he was beaten late three times, not one of those would be his fault. Jonathan Quick all but certainly will get the start in San Jose on Saturday in the trip-ender against the NHL’s 32nd-overall outfit.
Head coach Peter Laviolette switched up his middle six, moving J.T. Miller between Alexis Lafreniere and Will Cuylle on a promising unit while shifting Jonny Brodzinski to the right with Zibanejad and a ghostly Chris Kreider. The Artemi Panarin-Vincent Trocheck-Brennan Othmann remained intact.
Miller scored on a backhand chip on a feed from Cuylle for a 2-1 lead late in the first after Fox had opened the scoring on a dash to the net for a ricochet off the rear boards early in the match. Lafreniere rifled one home from the right circle off a feed from Miller for his second goal in his last 21 games for a 3-1 lead at 0:14 of the second.
But the Rangers could not cement it. The Rangers could not close it out. The Rangers got a losers’ point. Onto San Jose.
“Obviously we have a quick turnaround,” Fox said. “We’re not helping ourselves but we’re still in it.”
