Recap: Rangers Get Point in Overtime Loss to Vegas

Once again they played more than 60 minutes of hockey at Madison Square Garden on Sunday afternoon, there were seven goal-scorers and four lead changes in the game, but in the end for the Rangers, as Mats Zuccarello put it, it really boils down to this: "Hankie gave us a point today."
Henrik Lundqvist made 37 saves on Sunday afternoon, though merely reciting the quantity does not tell the full story of the quality of his saves, in particular during the game's first 40 minutes. And not only did he prevent a heating-up Vegas team from running away with the game, he kept his Rangers within striking distance to stage their third-period comeback and snag a point out of a 4-3 overtime loss to the Golden Knights at the Garden.
"He's unbelievable for sure. That's his point," Zuccarello said. "Today we were not there."
Finding themselves down by a single goal when the third period began, the Rangers finally did locate their legs and tied the game on Chris Kreider's bullet from the left dot 3:29 into the frame. But Alex Tuch stuffed in the winner at 2:11 of the 3-on-3 overtime to hand the Rangers their second OT defeat in three days.

Kevin Hayes - who was a gametime decision in this one some 40 hours after slamming into the backboards near the end of Friday night's Garden match with Arizona - wound up playing nearly 21 minutes and assisting on all three Ranger goals to make it nine points over his last four games (3-6-9). Brady Skjei, Mika Zibanejad and Kreider scored one of them in each period for the Rangers, with Zuccarello and Pavel Buchnevich picking up helpers.
Vegas got a goal and an assist from Paul Stastny - his first two points of the season in his second game back from injury - and Reilly Smith and William Carrier also scored for the Golden Knights, who improved to 10-2-1 over their last 13.
On Sunday it all shook out to a stalemate through 60 minutes, sending the Rangers to overtime for the fourth time in their last five games, including all three of their home games in December.
This one never would have gotten that far if not for Lundqvist, who made 14 stops in the first period and 11 in the second as the Golden Knights had 56 shot attempts to the Rangers' 30 by second intermission.

His best probably came on William Karlsson midway through the first period, recovering from Karlsson's initial shot and diving to keep out the rebound try with the paddle of his goalstick. But there were other candidates, too, like the second-period saves on both Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Tomas Nosek on their 2-on-1, or the kick save of Karlsson's breakaway, or the catching-glove grab with Jon Merrill walking in alone.
"Ridiculous how good he was in the first two periods, because those are as bad a two periods as we've played all year," David Quinn said. "They outhit us, they outskated us, outpassed us, outshot us - they out-everythinged us, other than goaltending. Without him, we have zero chance to have a good third period."
"They were just beating us to pucks, winning battles," said Marc Staal. "When you let another team take advantage of that, they're going to get looks like that."
The Rangers felt this way about their start in spite of the fact that they were on the board only 1:13 into the game when Skjei converted a beautiful saucer pass from Buchnevich that sat perfectly for him on a 3-on-1 rush.

Vegas matched it with a fortunate bounce on a power play at 11:40, when Colin Miller's slapper missed the net over top but came off the back glass, then Lundqvist's back, then both the goaltender's skates and in, with Smith receiving credit as he dug around in the crease.
Stastny put Vegas in front at 6:09 in the second when the Rangers' defenders went to Max Pacioretty and left Stastny looking at a wide-open net - Stastny's first goal of in 2018-19 after missing 30 games with a lower-body injury. That's when Quinn, during the next TV timeout, had his players huddle up at the bench.
"You can't come out and play hockey like that," the coach said. "It's 200 by 85. If you don't want to be involved in contact, you should go do something else. You can't hide in this game, and we hid for two periods."
"It's one thing to lose when you're ready, when you're prepared and you play hard," Lundqvist said, "but I think the first two periods, that's not the way we can play. Not at home in front of our fans - we need to work harder. Mistakes are going to happen - I'll make mistakes, we'll make mistakes. But we can't accept not being ready to fight for one another."

Before the second period was out, Zibanejad momentarily drew the Rangers even at 12:10 with his second power-play goal in as many games, and another scorcher from the blue line, but that tie lasted just 1:02 before Carrier stripped Lias Andersson coming out of the Rangers' zone and finished his 2-on-1 with Nosek.
And so even with the way the first 40 minutes transpired, the Rangers found themselves back in their dressing room still very much in the hockey game. "There's no question, down by one going into the third was a good situation for us the way we played in the first two periods," Staal said.
"You can play one good period and get something out of the game," said Zuccarello. "The game should have been over after 40 minutes there, but Hankie kept us in, and we played a good third period and came back and got a point."
Kreider got them level one more time with his team-leading 15th goal of the season, shooting in stride from just above the left dot and beating Fleury over the left shoulder for a 3-3 game at 3:29. It came off a neutral-zone turnover forced by Hayes, who picked up his third assist of the afternoon, matching a career high and also giving him his 200th NHL point.
More importantly, it was enough to give the Rangers their 33rd point in the standings, with the finale of a three-game homestand coming on Tuesday night against Anaheim.
"You've got to find ways," Lundqvist said. "Sometimes it's not going to work - you have a tough night, or the game is not working the way you want to, but you can still find ways. We found a way in the end to get a point."
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