Lundqvist Strong In Preseason Debut Against Flyers

PHILADELPHIA --The Rangers' comeback fell just short Monday night in Philadelphia, as the Blueshirts lost, 4-3, to the Flyers in overtime.

The Rangers battled back Monday night in Philadelphia, overcoming a 3-0 deficit late in the second period to get the game to overtime.
But Philadelphia's Jacob Voracek scored just 27 seconds into the overtime to win it for the Flyers.
Ryan Graves, Brandon Pirri and Jimmy Vesey all scored in the loss.
Henrik Lundqvist was superb in his first outing of the preseason, turning aside 17 of 18 shots in just over 30 minutes of work. His most impressive save came in the first period when he denied Brayden Schenn on a one-timer from the bottom of the circle with his glove. He later added another pretty stop on Shayne Gostisbehere late in the opening frame.

Lundqvist allowed just one goal, coming on a delayed penalty in the second period. Gostisbehere fired a shot from the point that went wide. The rebound was batted back in front by Roman Lyubimov, which found the stick of Jason Weal who fired a shot through Lundqvist to put the Flyers up 1-0 at 8:41 of the third.
"It's good, especially when you play half the game," Lundqvist said of the work he saw. "You get some action early on. Some games when you play, you don't see a lot of shots or zone time. It was fun to be out there again and play. I look forward to the next one already."
Lundqvist was pulled shortly after for Mackenzie Skapski, who had the unfortunate task of coming in cold on the penalty kill, which quickly turned into a 5-on-3 after J.T. Miller was called for a four-minute double minor for high sticking.
Jakob Voracek made it 2-0 and Travis Konecny added another just 42 seconds later to open the game up, 3-0, in favor of the hosts.
The tide began to turn late in the middle period when Graves buried a feed from Miller past goaltender Steve Mason to cut the deficit to 3-1 at 16:23 of the second period.

The comeback was on in full when the red-hot Pirri potted his fourth goal in three preseason games early in the third to bring the Rangers to within one goal.
They'd get that goal at 10:51 of the third period when Flyers goaltender Steve Mason misplayed a puck behind his net and turned it over to Derek Stepan, who found the streaking Vesey and fired it into the half-open cage to tie the game, 3-3.
"Definitely nice to get the first one out of the way," Vesey said. "Wish it would have came in a come back win, but it feels good to get that one. It was a great pass by Step. Just put it on net and the goalie was still recovering, so that was an easy one."
New York had a scare late in the first period when Vesey was driven from behind into the boards by Radko Gudas, leaving the rookie down on the ice for several moments. Dylan McIlrath came to the aide of his teammate and tried to fight Gudas, but the two were separated before the fists flew. The scuffle resulted in Gudas getting five minutes for boarding and fighting, as well as a game misconduct. McIlrath, meanwhile, got two for instigating, five for fighting and a 10-minute misconduct.
"I thought I had a little more time than that," said Vesey, who said he felt the hit woke him up. "Didn't expect that big of a hit and the next thing I knew, I was face first into the glass. I wasn't expecting it. Got caught off guard a little bit."
Like Lundqvist and Stepan, Ryan McDonagh played his first game of the preseason after the World Cup of Hockey. He finished the night with 27:13 of ice time.