One thing David Quinn said he would like back from Wednesday's game was his decision to go back to Henrik Lundqvist in goal for a fifth straight start and coming out of two hard-fought road wins - Quinn publicly blamed himself for that following the loss. And so the coach said on Thursday that Alexander Georgiev would get the nod in Denver for his 10th start this season, surpassing his total from 2017-18.
Georgiev came on in the third period to finish up the game against the Penguins, which had already taken shape by then: After a first period in which the Rangers carried the play but couldn't solve Penguins goalie Matt Murray, Pittsburgh scored four times in a span of 9:16 in the second to grab ahold of the game. After that, Mika Zibanejad said, "the score kind of got away from us."
"I don't think it was a 7-2 game," the center said. "There are obviously things we didn't do well enough throughout the game, but I thought we did a lot of good things, we spent a lot of time in their zone. I don't think we gave them too many chances, but the chances they got, they scored them. Hats off to them, it's a really good hockey team."
Ryan Strome and Pavel Buchnevich each scored against the Pens to give the Rangers thoughts of a comeback that didn't materialize. "To be able to not quit and to keep playing certainly is a good sign and a good characteristic moving forward," said David Quinn, who is a former Avalanche assistant coach.
The Rangers are 6-10-2 on the road this season, but the last two games were confidence-builders: a come-from-behind win in Nashville on Saturday followed two nights later by a low-scoring victory in St. Louis, two games in which Lundqvist made a total of 73 saves. Five of the Rangers' next six games come away from home.
Having gone to overtime in six of their first 15 road games this season - and shootouts in five of those - the Rangers were all too happy to finish off two wins in three nights without needing extra time.
"It feels good to get two points after just 60 minutes, that's definitely a good feeling," Zibanejad said. "We just have to keep building on what we've been doing over the last little bit, and we're going to get on the road and just really buckle down here before the break.
"It's an important time. We know the importance of the game. It's going to be fun to get on the road.
The Avalanche come in having lost six in a row (0-4-2); on home ice, they've dropped four straight and seven of their last nine (2-4-3), the most recent when a comeback fell short on Wednesday in a 5-4 loss to San Jose. Colorado held a share of the Western Conference lead as recently as Dec. 7, but since have been passed in standings by five teams.
Still, two of the NHL's top four scorers call Denver home: Mikko Rantanen is second in the league with 62 points (17-45-62), while his center, Nathan MacKinnon, is fourth in both points (60) and goals (24). Colorado's vaunted top line, which included captain Gabriel Landeskog on the left, has been split up during this skid, with Landeskog dropping onto Alex Kerfoot's flank and Tyson Jost moving onto the top unit. Jost scored twice against the Sharks, his fifth and sixth goals of the season and first in 17 games.
Philipp Grubauer was replaced in goal after the Avalanche fell behind 5-1 to the Sharks, and coach Jared Bednar said afterward that he might lean toward giving 28-year-old Pavel Francouz his first NHL start against the Rangers.
For Quinn, Friday's game will take him back to where his pro hockey coaching career began. The Rangers' bench boss spent four seasons in the Colorado organization, three as the head coach of the team's Lake Erie AHL affiliate, and the abbreviated 2012-13 season as an assistant coach with the Avalanche. Among the players he coached in Lake Erie was Shattenkirk, who was Colorado's top pick (14th overall) in the 2007 draft before being dealt to St. Louis in 2011 for current Avs defenseman Erik Johnson.
"You get a feel of the league and how it operates," Quinn said on Thursday. "It certainly was a valuable experience for me, not only for this (Rangers) job but in coaching in general. That organization gave me my first opportunity to coach pro hockey - I loved my three years in the American League, I loved my half a year in Colorado in the strike-shortened season, and I still have a lot of good friends within the organization. So it's going to be fun to go back."
