The New York Rangers will look for better luck on little rest when they head on the road to oppose the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday.
New York will be eyeing redemption after taking a 3-2 defeat on Friday against the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins, who were without Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
The Rangers took 1-0 and 2-1 leads thanks to goals from Vincent Trocheck and Adam Fox, but the Penguins scored twice more in the second period, then held on for the one-goal victory.
Trocheck also added an assist in the loss, and Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin turned aside 23 of the 26 shots he faced.
New York center Mika Zibanejad, who was held without a point in the contest, said postgame, “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.”
The Rangers were outshot 26-17 through the first two periods, but despite holding the Penguins to zero shots in the third, and piling up seven of their own, they were unable for the equalizer.
The loss marked the end of a two-game win streak for New York, which will looking to head into the 4 Nations Face-Off break with a victory at Columbus.
The up-and-down Blue Jackets enter the Metropolitan Division matchup with three consecutive losses (0-2-1) after recording three straight wins. Most recently, Columbus fell 4-3 to the Utah Hockey Club on Thursday when Dylan Guenther scored at 4:27 of overtime.
Columbus defenseman Ivan Provorov logged a goal for a career-best third straight game, and Justin Danforth collected his first goal in 19 games.
“There’s no excuses for us,” Danforth said following the contest. “We pride ourselves on being a consistent team. I felt like we were there for most of the night but just not good enough.”
Prior to Thursday, the Blue Jackets had won five straight home games. The Blue Jackets have been one of the NHL’s best home squads this season with a 17-5-4 record.
A big reason for that mark is the play of Zach Werenski. With an assist against Utah, Werenski extended his home point streak to 20 games (13 goals, 24 assists), becoming just the fourth defenseman in NHL history to accomplish this feat.
Not only did he extend his point streak, but Werenski also set a club record for points in a season by a defenseman with 58 (17 goals, 41 assists). Werenski had logged 57 points (11 goals, 46 assists) last season to match the mark set in 2017-18 by Seth Jones (16 goals, 41 assists).
The Rangers have secured victories in six of their past eight matchups with the Blue Jackets. In the clubs’ only prior meeting this season, New York topped Columbus 1-0 in a shootout on Jan. 18.
