The New York Rangers will look to end a three-game losing streak when they visit the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday night before the teams meet again on Friday in New York.
The Rangers are coming off a 5-3 setback to visiting New Jersey on Monday after losing 4-3 to Edmonton and 3-2 to Anaheim. Ottawa is coming off a 3-2 overtime win against host Los Angeles on Sunday after knocking off the Ducks on Friday.
The Rangers took a 2-0 first-period lead against the Devils on goals by Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad before falling apart defensively. New Jersey scored four times on Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin in a span of about 23 minutes bridging the first two periods to take a lead, 4-2, they wouldn’t relinquish.
“Goalie played [expletive] game again,” said Shesterkin, who made 33 saves. “I feel so bad and play so bad. I’m ashamed.
“Every goal is an easy play for me. I have to stop those. If our team wants to win the game, I have to play better.”
Panarin’s goal was his first in 13 games for the Rangers, who squandered a multiple-goal lead for the second straight game. The Oilers scored four times in the third period to rally from a three-goal deficit on Saturday.
“The team is a problem, the whole group of us, coaches, the whole group,” New York coach Gerard Gallant said. “We’ve got to turn it around.”
Meanwhile, Ottawa, which is last in the Atlantic Division, is making strides to turn its season around.
The Senators have consecutive wins for the first time since a season-best four-game winning streak from Oct. 18-24.
The Senators took a 2-1 lead Sunday on Alex DeBrincat’s goal with 7:43 left in the second period against the Kings, who tied the score when Arthur Kaliyev scored his second goal of the game with 2:25 left in the period.
But the Senators needed just 20 seconds to end the game in overtime. Tim Stutzle flipped a back-handed pass from behind his red line and hit Claude Giroux in stride near mid-ice, with Giroux finishing his breakaway by slipping a forehand past Jonathan Quick.
“The whole goal was special,” said Ottawa defenseman Thomas Chabot, who also assisted on the play by getting the puck to Stutzle. “‘[Giroux], what a move. And, obviously, it was big for us. … To see that we can do it that way, it’s big for us.”
Cam Talbot finished with 25 saves for the Senators.
The Senators’ back-to-back victories match their win total of their previous 13 games combined, a stretch when the team went 2-10-1 after the season-best four-game winning streak.
“When you play well and you look after the game and you’re happy with your game but you didn’t get the result, it’s easy to go off page and start doing your own thing,” said Giroux, whose nine goals are tied with Brady Tkachuk for the team lead.
“But it’s good to know that we played the way we wanted to tonight and we have the result, so we know it works. We know we can get it done. It’s about being consistent and doing it every night.”
–Field Level Media
