The Rangers have harped on their lack of 60-minute efforts of late, but they didn’t have their surging offense to fall back on in this one.
Through two periods, the game was played on the Blueshirts’ terms. But the Sharks tilted the ice in the final frame and carried it over into overtime, where Sharks defenseman Erik Karlsson scored 49 seconds into the extra period to pick up a 3-2 win and the first victory of the David Quinn era in San Jose on Thursday night.
The former Rangers head coach may have been welcomed back to New York with audible boos from the Garden crowd, but by the end of the night, all anybody could hear were the sounds of Quinn’s new team celebrating on the ice.
“I have no idea where that [third period] came from,” Quinn’s successor, Gerard Gallant, said after the loss. “I have no idea what went wrong. It was just a total collapse. It was embarrassing, actually. When guys are standing in front of your net banging in four rebounds, you know, Shesty [goalie Igor Shesterkin] had to make four saves in that one spot. I mean, that doesn’t happen with our team, with any team in the NHL.
“It was just — I don’t know. It wasn’t one line or one player, it was a total collapse of the whole team, and that was disappointing. But we’ll get by it.”
The Rangers’ red-hot offense, which had scored 17 goals in the previous four games, wasn’t as fluid in this one. Transitions weren’t as smooth, the passes weren’t as crisp and the chemistry wasn’t as palpable. Chris Kreider hit the post in the second period, and Jacob Trouba did the same early on in the third.
It was in the final frame, however, that the previously 0-5 Sharks smelled blood in the water.
The Rangers were held to a mere two shots on goal in the final 20 minutes of regulation, which allowed San Jose to make up the difference through the first two periods. And it wasn’t necessarily about the quantity of the Sharks shots (27) but the quality. San Jose recorded 11 high-danger chances in the third period and 13 overall, according to Natural Stat Trick, but it felt like the visitors were threatening around the net for much of the night.
And immediately after a prime power-play opportunity arose late in the third period, the Rangers’ fifth of the game, Artemi Panarin was called for tripping to negate the man-advantage. The usually sharp first unit went 0-for-5 in the loss after posting five power-play tallies in its previous 15 tries.
“That’s been a problem for us early — playing a full 60 minutes the way we want to play,” captain Jacob Trouba said. “I’d say we’ve yet to do that, but that’s going to be our focus going forward.”
Six penalties were called through the opening 20 minutes alone, meaning nearly half the period was played at five-on-four, one way or the other. The Sharks managed to open the scoring on one of their three chances for just their second power-play goal of the season, while their penalty kill continued to be a bright spot in their slow start.
The Sharks’ penalty kill is now a perfect 20-for-20 on the season after fending off all five of the Rangers’ power plays.
“We’re going to talk about this one on Saturday when we come back to work, and then we’ll get ready for Sunday’s game [against Columbus],” Gallant said. “Obviously, the guys are frustrated. I’m frustrated. We got a point out of it. We weren’t great in the third period, we were pretty bad. I don’t expect to see that period again.”