NEW YORK — Both Igor Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick were unavailable to start between the pipes for the Rangers Thursday night due to injury.
Yet the Minnesota Wild only had two shots in the first period on third-string goalie Louis Domingue in their 4-1 loss to the Rangers inside Madison Square Garden, which ended their two-game winning streak.
The Wild were fortunate to trail the Rangers 1-0 after 20 minutes. The Rangers had a 14-2 edge in shots with 72.97 percent of the shot attempt share and 76.44 percent of the expected goal share in a penalty-less period aside from fighting majors for Brandon Duhaime and Barclay Goodrow.
“We got to have better starts,” Duhaime said. “There’s no doubt about that.”
Vincent Trocheck scored 3:56 into the game when his rising shot from the edge of the left circle beat Marc-Andre Fleury clean high-blocker. Erik Gustafsson’s keep at the blue line and Alexis Lafreniere’s centering pass created the opportunity.
The Wild, however, struggled to break out of their own zone and materialize anything offensively with just two shots about 14 minutes apart to show for.
That resulted in extended offensive zone time and some good looks for the Rangers, who tested Marc-Andre Fleury early and often. Fleury made 24 saves in the loss, which moved him past Patrick Roy for the third-most saves in NHL history at 25, 808.
“He gives us an opportunity to win every night,” Duhaime said of Fleury. “We gotta be better for him up front.”
And while the slow start didn’t take the Wild out of the game, there’s a good chance they would’ve won had they played like they did in the middle frame.
“We gotta make sure we put in consistent effort, good play like we did in the second,” Fleury said. “Make it consistent for three periods, and your odds will be better.”
The Wild came ready to play in the second with the period’s first nine shots, but couldn’t get the puck past Domingue, who made 25 saves for the Rangers.
The Wild didn’t score on their lone power play in the game in the second and are 2-for-11 in the past four games.
The Wild finally found the back of the net with seven minutes and 27 seconds left in the second when Duhaime tipped Brock Faber’s point shot past Domingue.
But the Wild didn’t start the third the way they ended the second and suffered a setback when the Rangers capitalized a minute and 41 seconds into the third on Faber’s poor pinch that led to a 2-on-1 rush the other way.
Artemi Panarin extended his point streak to 13 games when he set up Lafreniere for a backdoor tap-in.
“It was just stupid plain and simple,” Faber said of the pinch. “I looked at it on the bench and kind of hoped I saw something different — but I didn’t. It was just a complete lack of judgment that cost us.”
Blake Wheeler gave the Rangers a 3-1 lead on the power play when he scored on William Cuylle’s rebound. And Panarin sealed the deal with an empty net goal with 1:21 left on the clock.
“I think it was more their fast start than our slow start,” Evason said. “We didn’t get shots at the net, but there wasn’t a lot of Grade-A scoring chances in the first period that we gave up.
“So, again, we weathered the storm on the road and got to our game and unfortunately it didn’t get the end result.”
On the bright side, Zach Bogosian played well in his Wild debut, where he logged 14:44 of ice time with two shots and showcased his physicality along the boards. And Daemon Hunt, who saw 14:17 of ice time, also played well with more minutes than he had in his first four appearances.
The Wild hope to rebound tomorrow night in Buffalo before heading home to play the Dallas Stars Sunday evening.
“Better to face the adversity early than later,” Duhaime said. “We’ll just keep making adjustments and get back to our game, and we’re going to find it soon here.”
All data via Natural Stat Trick