EDMONTON, Alberta — The Rangers hung with an Oilers team that has three of the top five producing skaters in the NHL on Monday night.
Despite two of them landing on the scoresheet — who else but Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl (twice)? — the Blueshirts kept this 3-1 loss relatively low-event and generated spurts of offensive pressure to make this second meeting in nine days a much more evenly matched affair than the first at Madison Square Garden.
As disjointed as their power play has been all season long, however, the lack of production had never so glaringly cost the Rangers like it did Monday night.
The visitors went 0-for-5 with the man advantage, including two in the third period and one with 1:27 left in regulation. The Rangers went without a single shot on goal during the first power play before giving up an empty-net goal to Draisaitl on the second.
After the 4-1 loss to the Oilers on Nov. 1, the Rangers coaching staff made the executive decision to break up the two power play units the team had ridden for a majority of the season. In addition to personnel changes, the Rangers leaned on double-shifting Adam Fox as well.
Plugging players in different positions hasn’t had the desired effect. Neither has double-shifting Fox.
The Rangers carried a 20.8 power play percentage into Monday’s contest, which ranked 19th in the NHL.
A second-ranked penalty kill has offset their power-play struggles, but the Blueshirts are built for the man advantage to be a separating factor, and it simply has not been.
For the second time in two games in the span of nine days, McDavid opened the scoring against the Rangers to extend his point streak to a staggering 19 consecutive games — or every single Oilers game this season.
While McDavid’s goal off the rush in their Nov. 1 meeting was an individual effort on Dylan Garand, Monday night saw an accidental assist from the Rangers rookie goalie.
Inadvertently hitting the side of the net on an attempted pass from the trapezoid, Garand lost the puck with McDavid lurking and couldn’t get to the crease in time to stop the three-time Hart Trophy winner from scoring what may have been the easiest of his 11 goals so far this season.
Garand and the Rangers recovered from the gaffe fairly well for the remainder of the period, but the visitors found themselves down by two early in the second period.
Draisaitl chipped the puck in from the high slot with McDavid battling Braden Schneider in front of Garand. The Rangers challenged for goaltender interference, but were unsuccessful.
With the Rangers already down a man due to the failed challenge, Schneider then got called for a delay of game for flipping the puck out of play. As a result, the Oilers had a 5-on-3 advantage for 21 seconds.
Not only did the visitors fend off both power plays, but the Rangers scored a shorthanded goal to stay competitive.
Taking a leading feed from Mika Zibanejad right out of the penalty box, Jaroslav Chmelar sniped the puck top corner on Oilers goalie Devon Levi for the first shorthanded goal of his young career and the 2-1 score.
