Rangers Unable to Overcome Slow Start in Loss to Senators

The New York Rangers couldn’t overcome their blunderous start on Saturday night, leading to a 7-4 loss to the Ottawa Senators.

The Rangers were coming off a 5-4 loss against the Toronto Maple Leafs in a performance Mike Sullivan described as “uncharacteristic” due to the Rangers’ lack of defensive structure.

That performance carried into the start of Saturday night's game, as the Blueshirts gave up two goals less than 10 minutes into the contest, with poor defensive play in their own zone and failures to break out the puck at the forefront of the team’s struggles.

“I would have liked to have hoped that we were ready from the drop of the puck,” Sullivan said. “We weren't overly excited about our overall team effort in our last game also. Give them (the Senators) credit, they started well.”

By about the middle of the second period, the Rangers found themselves in a 4-1 deficit, with seemingly little hope to cling onto.

However, the Rangers made a late-period push, powered by Sullivan’s line changes. Oliver Bjorkstrand was put on a line with Tye Kartye and J.T. Miller, while Pavel Dorofeyev was switched onto Will Cuylle and Noah Laba’s line, with Eeli Tolvanen playing on the fourth line.

“I thought it changed the momentum for sure. When I made the switch, we scored right away, and I thought it changed the momentum of the game from our standpoint,” Sullivan said about the impact of the line changes. “I think from that point on it felt like we started to get some juice, and so I just didn't think we had enough going, and so we decided to tweak some lines to see what we could get.”

Bjorkstrand, who’s been utilized in both a top-six and bottom-six role to start the season, made an instant impact after Sullivan’s line changes, assisting on J.T. Miller’s goal in the second period.

Dorofeyev had just two goals in 12 games leading into Saturday night, and he remained snake-bitten despite moving between the two top-six lines and holding a role on the first power-play unit.

For the first time this season, Dorofeyev scored one of his signature goals, snapping the puck top shelf past Jonas Johansson in the third period.

“This is what I said to him this morning, I had a conversation with him. Pav's had a lot of chances,” Sullivan said. “He's hit a lot of posts. If a certain percentage of the ones that hit the posts have gone in the net, we wouldn't be having this conversation. That's the nature of hockey. If he wasn't getting the chances, it would be a different conversation. He got a nice goal tonight. It's a goal scorer's goal. We're hoping that might get him going.”

The Rangers managed to cut Ottawa’s lead to one goal twice and played their best period of the game in the final frame, tilting the ice into the Senators’ zone and generating numerous high-quality scoring chances, but they failed to rally back.

Through their two-game road trip, in which the Rangers went 0-2, they went away from their well-structured defensive identity that had galvanized this team to a hot 7-3-1 start to the season.

“I think the moral of the story is some of the looks they got were still too high quality for me,” Sullivan said. “That might be a similarity to Toronto, and we just gave them too much off the rush tonight.”

The Rangers will now look to bounce back at home, where they've started a perfect 6-0, as they host the Los Angeles Kings on Monday night.