Rangers Blow Multi-Goal Lead In Crushing Loss To Stars

The New York Rangers continue to find new ways to lose hockey games.

Despite leading by three goals at one point, the Rangers suffered a gut-wrenching 5-4 overtime defeat at the hands of the Dallas Stars on Tuesday night.

The Rangers scored three quick goals in the first period to take a commanding 3-0 lead. Two of the goals came from Alexis Lafrenière who hadn’t found the back of the net since Dec. 8 as he was finally able to reactivate his confidence.

Withstanding these three quick goals though, the Rangers’ defensive woes were very prevalent and it eventually caught up to them.

By the middle of the second period, New York’s three-goal cushion had completely evaporated and the Stars tied the game at 3-3.

To make matters worse, Filip Chytil suffered a mysterious upper-body injury that forced him to exit the game after 40 minutes.

Peter Laviolette confirmed that Chytil is being evaluated.

In the third period, the Rangers pushed back and began to play some of their best hockey. As a unit, they fought hard and looked almost like an entirely different team.

Vincent Trocheck’s power play goal gave the Rangers a late third-period lead. The fans at Madison Square Garden were buzzing and all finally seemed right in New York, until it wasn’t.

The Rangers blew yet another lead in the final stages of the period and ultimately lost in overtime, marking a crushing night for the Blueshirts.

No matter how well the Rangers may have been playing through parts of the game, it’s inexcusable to choke a lead of this magnitude on your home ice.

“You come out of the gates, you’re up 3-0 at home and you don’t win the hockey game, you did enough wrong defensively to not be happy with it,” Laviolette said.

Once again, the Rangers just gave up too many odd-man rushes and it ended up costing them in a big way.

“It’s five guys maybe being a little bit off,” Adam Fox said. “Lack of communication is a big thing there. We obviously want to create chances, but at the same time you don’t want it to come back the other way around.”

The Rangers had a golden opportunity to win in grand fashion and add some much-needed momentum, but instead came away even more demoralized than before.

The Rangers will be back in action on Thursday night against the New Jersey Devils.