LAS VEGAS _ The New York Rangers have lost their mojo, coach David Quinn said before the finale of his team's three-game Western road trip Tuesday night. Trying to get it back against the Vegas Golden Knights was always going to be a tough task.
One they couldn't accomplish, it turned out.
The Rangers are returning home empty from the trip _ losing all three games, in Colorado, Arizona and Vegas _ and they now find themselves on a four-game losing streak after they fell to the 2018 Stanley Cup finalists, 4-2 at T-Mobile Arena. They have been outscored, 22-5 in the losing streak, and they have fallen below the NHL version of .500. They are now 17-18-7, good for 41 points, through 42 games.
After having been drilled by the lowly Arizona Coyotes, 5-0, on Sunday, the Rangers put up much more of a fight against the Knights, who won their seventh in a row and improved to 27-15-4 on the season. The Rangers skated with speed and managed to keep the Knights off the scoreboard until Marc Staal made a mistake by going for a puck in the neutral zone that he was never going to get to. Alex Tuch chipped the puck past Staal and set up Cody Eakin for a breakaway that he converted for his 13th goal of the season, at 16:02 of the first period.
Vegas added two goals in the second period, the first coming on a power play with Tony DeAngelo in the box for boarding, when Brandon Pirri dunked a rebound off the goalpost behind goaltender Alex Georgiev (27 saves) for his seventh goal of the season, in his eighth game, at 7:06. DeAngelo, who had been driven into the boards from behind by Vegas' Max Pacioretty and missed the final 11 minutes of the first period, retaliated and got called for the penalty. He was also given a 10-minute misconduct on the play. Jonathan Marchessault made it 3-0 when he finished a breakaway that resulted from a missed shot by Staal that ricocheted off the back boards and sent Marchessault on his way.
Mika Zibanejad finally got the Rangers a consolation goal, driving the net and tapping in a pass from Mats Zuccarello behind Marc Andre Fleury (27 saves as well) for his 12th goal of the season, pulling the Rangers within 3-1 at 11:43. The goal was Zibanejad's first point in five games, since he had a career-high four assists in the 4-3 win over Nashville on Dec. 29. It was his first goal since Dec. 16, in the 4-3 overtime loss to Vegas at the Garden.
Ryan Carpenter scored an empty-net goal with 1:20 left, but Jesper Fast scored a second goal for the Rangers with 24.1 seconds left. Georgiev started the first and third games of the road trip and in between relieved Henrik Lundqvist when he was pulled after allowing all five goals in the Arizona game.
