NEW YORK -- Seeing their runway to gain ground in the chase for the Eastern Conference’s second Wild-Card spot get a bit shorter, the Detroit Red Wings lost to the New York Rangers, 4-1, at Madison Square Garden on Saturday afternoon.
“You got to score more than one and you got to give up less than three,” Detroit head coach Todd McLellan said. “For our team, we did neither. I thought there were competitive areas, regional areas if you want to call it, that they were better at than we were.”
Netminder John Gibson drew his 14th straight start and made 17 saves for the Red Wings (40-28-8; 88 points), who saw Michael Rasmussen return to the lineup for the first time since March 12 because of an undisclosed injury and Axel Sandin-Pellikka step in for Justin Faulk (lower body). Across the ice, goalie Jonathan Quick finished with 31 saves for the Rangers (32-26-9; 73 points).
“We knew Jonathan Quick and how he’s played against us the past couple of years,” Detroit captain Dylan Larkin said. “We knew he’d be a factor, but man, was he really a factor. Threw everything at him and they scored opportunistic goals. We kept pushing and pushing, but we couldn’t get the puck by Quick.”
The Red Wings held strong on their opening penalty kill, which finished 1-for-1 in Philadelphia on Thursday night, after Andrew Copp was called for tripping 3:54 into the first period. However, they yielded the afternoon’s first goal when Jaroslav Chmelar tipped in Vladislav Gavrikov’s point shot to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead at 13:19 that lasted through the first intermission. Detroit received its first power play with 4:47 left but failed to record a shot.
“I think we can get out of the gate quicker,” McLellan said. “Don’t dip our toe in the water.”
At 13:04 of the second period, Drew Fortescue was hit with a slashing penalty against Lucas Raymond to send the visitors back on the man advantage. Detroit couldn’t strike on that one either, proving especially costly as Gabe Perreault’s first goal of the game -- a wrist shot from the slot off a nice feed from Mika Zibanejad -- doubled New York’s lead to 2-0 just 2:55 later.
“I think the first two power plays we had, we didn’t even get set up,” Lucas Raymond said. “Obviously, we want to get momentum from that. Not only from a goal, but create momentum and kind of come off of it with a good feeling, which we didn’t. We knew what to expect. We just have to be cleaner.”
Less than 30 short-handed seconds after J.T. Compher fired a shot that went off the post, Perreault's power-play marker made it 3-0 at 7:13 of the third period. The rookie forward then completed his first career NHL hat trick with an empty-net goal at 18:16.
“[Compher scoring] would’ve been nice, but at the same time, we should’ve let it get to that point,” Raymond said. “We got to find ways to put pucks in the net and, obviously, keep them out of our own.”
The Red Wings ended Quick's shutout bid with 33 seconds remaining in the three-game regular-season series finale between the pair of Original Six clubs. David Perron, who was assisted by Emmitt Finnie and James van Riemsdyk, found a loose puck down low and recorded his first goal of the campaign for the 4-1 final.
