The Rangers were usually the agents of chaos last season, but Saturday night, it was the Utah Hockey Club who thrived in disorder.
A chance to hand the NHL’s newest club their first franchise loss came and went as the Blueshirts fell, 6-5, to Utah on Saturday night in their home opener at Madison Square Garden, after Clayton Keller scored his second of the game with less than a minute left in overtime to secure the victory.
There was not nearly as much structure or composure from the Rangers in Game 2 compared to Game 1, which can be credited to the shiftiness and scrappiness with which Utah plays.
The Rangers, armed with new defense pairs who are still finding their footing to start the season, chased for a majority of the game.
“It’s two skilled teams, I think, both teams are able to play that kind of run and gun and chance for chance,” said Adam Fox, who had three assists in the loss. “We don’t want to get into that. It did turn a little bit into that, I didn’t think it was the ultimate run-and-gun game, but I thought we cleaned it up a little better in the third, cycled pucks down low, got traffic and that [third-period] goal was pretty indicative of that.”
This was an eventful homecoming at MSG that featured a ton of open ice and, as a result, goals.
The lamp was lit seven total times in the second period alone, with Utah taking a 5-4 lead into the second intermission.
Despite Will Cuylle notching the 5-5 equalizer with 7:04 left in regulation, the Rangers couldn’t finish the job in overtime and dropped their first game of the 2024-25 season.
There was a sort of dysfunction Utah fostered, which personified itself in K’Andre Miller’s miss on a wide-open net on his trickled rebound shortly before Fox tied it up.
Miller, whose turnover during four-on-four play in the second period led to a go-ahead Utah goal from Keller, hung his head over the bench in disbelief.
“I don’t know if they were thriving better or more than we were, but we talked about it all morning, the skill that they have, the speed that they have — they’re dangerous,” head coach Peter Laviolette said. “They’ve scored now 16 goals in three games. They know how to create. I do think that we generated, as well, so if we can just tighten some of the situational stuff up, it could’ve been different.”
The Rangers managed to answer all but one of Utah’s goals in the middle frame, when Keller and Kevin Stenlund scored just over 2 ½ minutes apart from one another for the two-goal lead.
Despite outshooting Utah 33-23 in regulation, the Rangers gave up a lot in areas of prime real estate. Utah took advantage of what was given to them.
The Rangers may have fended off a 5-on-3 Utah power play, but they still gave one up to Dylan Guenther when the visitors had the 5-on-4 advantage.
Braden Schneider, however, made an aggressive move to the net toward the end of the middle frame to keep the Rangers within striking distance.
Utah carved up the Rangers in the neutral zone for much of the game and created lots of traffic in the middle of their offensive zone.
Even when the fourth line mixed it up with Utah later in the second, when Sam Carrick and Adam Edstrom both dropped the gloves, the Rangers didn’t necessarily feed off it the way they usually do.
The two bruising forwards threw some serious haymakers, but Edstrom and Utah’s Jack McBain were assessed game misconducts to end their nights after they were deemed the secondary fight to break out.
“We were chasing the game the whole night,” Laviolette said. “Could never get ahead of it. Caught it a couple times, but could never get ahead of it. That’s frustrating.”
