Successful Weekend as Rangers Beat Coyotes

The New York Rangers defeated the Arizona Coyotes by a score of 3-2 at MSG. For a box score, click here.

Talk about two completely different games in a 24-hour span. The first periods looked similar. Unfortunately the Rangers didn’t have a four minute penalty kill tonight to give them momentum in the second. Guessing most didn’t have a lot of confidence going into the third period but before we could worry too much, the most unlikely hero appeared.

Before the game, there were a couple of roster changes that caught everyone off guard. Chris Kreider, always having to be different, suddenly came down with neck spasms. His presence was sorely missed as Zibanejad was basically invisible most of the night. In his place? Apparently Oscar Lindberg was further along than we knew. As for the other change, I’m just going to cut to the chase and talk about the defense as a whole.

For the past few days, the beat writers tried to warn us. They tried to give us a heads up by saying that Holden would remain in over Clendening. But none of us believed them or maybe none of us wanted to believe them. Sure enough, Dan Girardi returned and out went Clendening. After watching the first power play, which rivaled some of last years’ atrocities, I planned to pan that decision. Then the second power play managed to score so I’ll reluctantly let that side of it go.

But I won’t let the entire move go because I had to watch Nick Holden attempt to defend against the Coyotes all night and basically fail miserably. I have no problem with Holden being around. I have a problem with him being considered anything other than the 7th defenseman and I have a huge problem with him being considered a top 2 defenseman. He’s not.

I know people will say Dan Girardi isn’t a top 2 anymore either and they’re probably right. But he’s played decently so far this year and has chemistry with McDonagh, two things Holden can’t say at the moment. Simply put, it’s obvious this is a hole but I really can’t reason with playing Holden over Clendening at the moment. I’m hoping Vigneault realizes this too and fixes his error next game.

As for the game, Girardi and Skjei quietly had a good game and honestly, that is all I ask of those two right now. Don’t stand out for mistakes. If Vigneault wants to leave them as a pair, that’s fine as they are learning each others’ tendencies.

Forgetting the defense for a moment, there is one other issue – the forwards need to figure out how to shoot on net.

Was this a game the Rangers “should’ve won” due to the way they played? Borderline. But if they could hit the net, that game would’ve been over long before Girardi’s go-ahead laser. Instead we had a nail biter until the final buzzer. There was no reason for that.

Then again, there was no reason for Staal to make the same play Clendening did last night so the Coyotes were able to score 30 seconds into the game. Nor a reason Josh Jooris’ close-in shot somehow found the back of the net. There was no reason a shot by McDonagh from the point on the power play finally got tipped to make it look like he works back there nor any reason Kevin Hayes had to hand over the puck 10 minutes later to give Vrbata his second of the game. And there certainly was no reason Brady Skjei had to go end to end and manage to find Dan Girardi to give the Rangers the lead.

But luckily he did so the team can add two points to the bank instead of talking about how bad this loss would’ve been.

The Rangers are back at the Garden on Wednesday against the Bruins.