Rangers no match for Oilers’ high-octane offense in tough loss: ‘Missing energy’

The Rangers may have been in Friday night’s game on the scoreboard, largely due to goalie Jonathan Quick’s heroics, but their 60-minute effort was not worthy of a win. 

Edmonton scored four straight goals in the third period to post a 4-3 win against the Rangers, who defended a one-goal lead for a majority of the game before their push in the final minutes fell short in front of an invested and reactive crowd at Madison Square Garden. 

It wasn’t the first time the Rangers relied on Quick in a 1-0 game, but it wasn’t sustainable this time around against a high-octane Oilers team. 

“I don’t think we’re looking for small victories of clawing back into games anymore,” captain Jacob Trouba said after the loss, which dropped the Rangers to 22-8-1 on the season. “We expect to play a better game for a full 60 minutes. I think we’ve shown ourselves as a group that we can do that. I think that’s what we need to come to expect out of each other every night. 

“Another crack at it tomorrow before the break and hopefully we come with a better game tomorrow. Find a way to get two points and go into the break feeling good.” 

The Blueshirts’ had the lone goal of the game through just over 43 minutes of play after Blake Wheeler struck first in the opening frame. 

By the time the third period began, however, the Oilers had hit a stride and finally managed to put one past Quick when Zach Hyman and Evander Kane scored 1:08 apart to notch their first lead of the night at 2-1 with 15:43 left in regulation. 

Warren Foegele and Ryan McLeod each posted a goal later in the period as well to give Edmonton a comfortable 4-1 lead. 

The game had broken open at that point and the Rangers’ five-on-five offense wasn’t going enough to recover. Mika Zibanejad’s power-play goal at the 15:42 mark of the final frame cut his team’s deficit to 4-2. 

Will Cuylle then notched a last-second tally with the extra skater on and an empty Rangers net, but the clock had run out and it wasn’t enough. 

“I thought we were missing energy the entire night,” head coach Peter Laviolette said. “We didn’t generate very much in the second period, just kind of carried over into the third period. Quickie made some unbelievable saves in the second period I think to mask some of that. Throughout the entire game we just didn’t have the pop that we needed. 

“When we did start to skate a little bit toward them, we went East-West and turned it over and just kind of killed everything and it comes back at you pretty quick.” 

The Rangers nearly doubled their lead on the power play in the second period, when Zibanejad’s one-timer went off Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner’s helmet and rebounded to Artemi Panarin for the wide-open shot. 

Skinner’s helmet fell off, however, which prompted the officials to whistle the play dead.

The sequence went under review, but the initial no-goal call was upheld and the score remained 1-0 in favor of the Rangers. 

Still, the Rangers escaped the second period unscathed thanks to Quick’s heroics during two penalty kills. 

Quick, who shut out the Oilers at the end of October, was stellar until Edmonton carved up the Rangers’ defense in front of him.

Quick suffered his first loss in regulation this season. 

Finishing with 24 saves, Quick had the Garden crowd on its feet at one point during an Oilers power play in the middle frame, when Connor McDavid and Co. peppered him with shot after shot. 

The 37-year-old netminder had his head on a swivel and got in front of everything the Oilers threw at him, including a split save on a Hyman shot in tight. 

It ignited a “QUICK-IE” chant that reverberated around the whole arena. 

“He’s the only reason we were in it to start the third,” Trouba said of Quick. “If you look at the full 60 minutes, just not how we want to play. Quickie has been outstanding for us all year. He played a great game tonight with some of the saves he made. Got to do a little bit more in front of him.”