The Rangers Get Destroyed by The Bruins After Scoring First

After a promising start, they get smashed

Boston, MA- On a Saturday Afternoon, the New York Rangers made the quick trip to the TD Bank Gardens as they faced the Boston Bruins. What looked to be a great start to this game all of a sudden turned into a nightmare as the Bruins just took advantage of poor play, mental mistakes, and unfortunate circumstances, as the Bruins demolished the Rangers by a final score of ten to two.

Zibanejad with a big rip

The Rangers opened the scoring in the first period when they started attacking the Bruins’ zone. Matthew Robertson entered the zone from the near side and moved the puck to the corner toward Artemi Panarin. He skated along the end boards to the far corner, then made a nice pass inside the far faceoff circle to Mika Zibanejad as he smashed a one-timer past Jeremy Swayman at 1:24 of the first period./h

The Beginning of the End

A THREE-GOAL BARRAGE

After that goal was scored, the Bruins quickly got back to their game and pounded the Rangers with six straight goals in the first two periods. Henri Jokiharju stole the puck and found David Pastrnak at the near boards, then he sent a blind pass to an oncoming Marat Khusnutdinov flying off the bench and down the boards. Braden Schneider caught him late and was beaten to the net as Khusnutdinov delivered a wrist shot to beat Jonathan Quick at 2:31 of the first period.

Then another goal came quickly when the Rangers defenders came back to help Quick defend the shot. Then, out of nowhere, Will Borgen, on the far side of the ice, fell and lost an edge from his skate. This gave Pavel Zacha all the time and space to tee off a shot and beat Quick to give the Bruins the lead, which they never relinquished at 7:16 of the first period.

The third goal of the period came on the power play during a five-on-three as Mika Zibanejad was in the box for Tripping, and then 45 seconds later, J.T. Miller went to the box for slashing. A big flurry of chances for the Bruins was at the net as it looked like Quick made the stops, and one moment got help from Schneider to get the puck off the goal line.

After the horn sounded, the replay room in Toronto called down to the scorers’ table and asked the referees to look at the replay. From the overhead view, the entire puck did cross the goal line with just a little bit of white between the goal line and the puck, and the Bruins earned a three-to-one lead as Zacha was credited with the goal at 19:27 of the first period.

More goals from the Bruins

Three more goals were scored by the Bruins to put this game out of reach. They were skating hard and fast to put themselves into position for the win and make a climb out of the basement and into a wild card spot. Fraser Minton snapped a big shot at 2:12 of the second period, then two more goals from Khusnutdinov for his second of the game at 6:41, and then Zacha scored his hat trick to make it six to one at 11:26.

Vincent Trochek was awarded a penalty shot as he was on a breakaway and got slashed while attempting a shot on goal. As he took the puck from Center Ice, he moved in slowly to survey where he wanted to shoot the puck, but Swayman closed up his five-hole and made the right pad save to stop Trocheck.

While J.T. Miller scored on the power play and cut it down to a four-goal deficit, the Bruins never flinched when Charlie McAvoy ripped his shot to make it a seven-to-two game. The Rangers looked defeated, and it felt like they didn’t want to come out for the third period, but they had to, so they could get it over with.

Beaten into submission

The Bruins continued the onslaught, as the Rangers looked helpless and lifeless on the ice. Even if Sam Carrick did drop the gloves to provide a spark, it wasn’t coming, and the Bruins got three more in the third period, as two of them came from Khusnutdinov for a four-goal game, and Minten earned his second goal of the game.

Bad game all around

After giving up six goals in the first two periods, the Rangers pulled Jonathan Quick and sent in Spencer Martin, who was called up from the Hartford Wolf Pack due to the lower-body injury that Igor Shesterkin suffered in the home game against the Utah Mammoth. While it is difficult that both Adam Fox and Shesterkin are out due to injury, this performance was horrible.

After a fantastic goal from Zibanejad to get a good start to the game, the defense was nonexistent. The drive and passion came out of their bodies once they got behind by a goal, and of course, the deflating moment was seeing them return to the ice as the replay room saw the entire puck cross the goal line toward the end of the period.

While Jonathan Quick always tries his best to play at his best, we are well aware that at this stage of his career, he is no longer a caliber starting goaltender. But that doesn’t mean his defensemen are not liable for their issues either. Misjudging the speed of certain players, not clearing pucks out of the zone, and mistiming defensive moments are not cutting it.

Hopefully, Shesterkin and Fox will be back before the Olympic break, but right now, there are too many questions and not enough answers to say this team is going to steal a playoff spot in the wild card positions. Now they will return home to the Garden for two games against the Seattle Kraken and the Ottawa Senators before heading off to a four-game road trip to Philadelphia and the state of California. Mike Sullivan and his staff need to find answers, and they must find them fast.

MIKA ZIBANEJAD: Scored his team-leading, 17th goal of the season and his 58th career game-opening goal, surpassing Jean Ratelle (57) for the third most in franchise history. He recorded his 10th multi-point game of the season and extended his point streak to five-straight games (5G-5A).

ARTEMI PANARIN: Recorded an assist on Zibanejad’s goal and extended his assist streak to six-straight games, the longest active streak among all NHL skaters.

J.T. MILLER: Scored his fourth power play goal of the season and has notched a point in back-to-back games since returning to the ice on Jan. 8 after missing seven games due to injury.

VINCENT TROCHECK: Tallied an assist on Miller’s goal, extending his point streak to six-straight games (3G-4A).

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