TAMPA, Fla. — And so the franchise record is safe after the Rangers’ winning streak stopped at nine on Thursday night with an excruciating 2-1 loss to the Lightning on Valtteri Filpulla’s 2-on-1 shorthanded score with 1:06 remaining in regulation.
“It doesn’t matter how many you win, you want to win every game,” Henrik Lundqvist said after his team fell one short of matching the club record. “And the way we lost is extremely frustrating.”
The Rangers had carried the play much of the way and had a significant edge in zone time over the final 40 minutes. Indeed, the Blueshirts were much sounder than they had been in many of the victories off which they had built a 14-2-2 record.
But the Blueshirts were down 1-0 until late in the third before Dom Moore capitalized on a turnover forced by Jesper Fast to tie it at 13:43. The fact is, the Moore-Fast-Jarret Stoll fourth line was impressive all night, and became the de facto third line for the second straight game.
Tied late, smelling blood and going for the kill and a share of the record, the Rangers went on the power play with 1:26 to go. Instead, the Blueshirts were killed themselves by the Tampa Bay kill-unit on a botched pass from Derek Stepan at the left half-wall to Ryan McDonagh at the left point, for which the stand-up Stepan accepted full responsibility.
“I tried to make a play to Mac and put him in a terrible spot,” Stepan, whose hard feed handcuffed the captain, told The Post. “It was a terrible play and it cost the team two points.
“It just stinks. We played a strong game, but I put too much air on [the pass] and put Mac in trouble. You have to make the easy plays.
“It was just stupid.”
The Lightning, who eliminated the Rangers in last year’s seven-game conference finals, taking both Games 5 and 7 at the Garden by the same 2-0 score, were missing Triplets Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat as well as Ryan Callahan, the three sidelined with injuries.
Tampa Bay, 8-9-3 entering the match, thus played a more conservative game. And the Lightning and netminder Ben Bishop made Blueshirts coach Alain Vigneault’s pregame observation that, “They have their whole defense corps and goaltender [back]” seem prescient.
The Rangers had one of their best forechecking efforts of the year; maybe their best. They had a wide advantage in possession after the Lightning struck for a 1-0 lead at 14:47 of the first when Alex Killorn beat Lundqvist on a screened 35-footer following a simply frightful turnover by Keith Yandle, whose attempted 4-on-4 outlet up the middle was easily intercepted by Filppula at the line.
But the Blueshirts’ zone time did not translate into shots on Bishop, let alone scoring opportunities. Indeed, the Rangers mustered just 15 shots over the first 43:51 before Bishop made a left pad save on Chris Kreider’s penalty shot at 3:51 of the third. Kreider, beaten on wrist shot off a feint as he attacked on a left-wing angle, has never been selected to go in the shootout.
“It was one of our better forechecking games and we had good possession in the offensive zone but we didn’t put enough on their goaltender,” said McDonagh, who was up on the play throughout. “We had the puck a lot more, but we couldn’t generate enough scoring chances.
“We haven’t felt this way in a while.”
This was the Rangers’ first loss since a shootout in Philadelphia on Oct. 24 and the first in regulation since a 3-0 spanking in Montreal on Oct. 15, a span of 13 (11-0-2) straight. And sure enough, after getting by so many times in games in which they were outplayed, they lost this one despite playing well enough.
That’s sports. That’s hockey.
“We fought the whole game to get back in it and we finally did,” said Lundqvist, who wasn’t thrilled with the way he played the decisive 2-on-1 that was triggered by J.T. Brown. “Then we gave it away.”
So, it is onto Sunrise, Fla., for Saturday’s match against the Panthers, the Rangers now with a one-game losing streak.