NEW YORK _ The lineup changes keep coming for the Rangers because first-year coach David Quinn still can't seem to find an alignment that he likes enough to use two times in a row. On Sunday, in the eighth game of the season, Quinn dressed his eighth different lineup against the visiting Calgary Flames and it's unlikely the former Boston University coach will stay with this one either.
Johnny Gaudreau, the former Boston College star who Quinn knows well from his Hockey East days, and Garnet Hathaway scored two goals each to power Calgary to a 4-1 victory over the Rangers at the Garden. With the loss, the Rangers fell to 2-5-1, with a game Tuesday against the Florida Panthers up next before they take off on a four-game, eight-day trip to Chicago and California.
Mika Zibanejad's wicked power-play wrister from the left circle that found its way over the right shoulder of Calgary backup goalie David Rittich got the Rangers on the board at 6:41 of the third and gave them hope. But Rittich (44 saves) foiled them at every turn after that, making several grade-A saves in the final period, including one on a point shot from Vlad Namestnikov and a save of the point-blank rebound shot by Cody McLeod with 6:45 remaining.
Hathaway, who had scored his first goal of the season in the second period, ended any suspense when he scored on a breakaway with 1:53 remaining, as the Rangers' Brady Skjei had taken down Calgary's Rasmus Andersson at center ice to punish him for a hard hit on Mats Zuccarello.
An upper-body injury to defenseman Fredrik Claesson was already going to force Quinn to make at least one change from the team that lost to the defending Stanley Cup champion Capitals in Washington on Wednesday, with Adam McQuaid re-entering the lineup to take Claesson's place. But Quinn also scratched forward Ryan Spooner, replacing him with McLeod.
With Spooner out, Namestnikov moved into his spot as the center of the fourth line, with McLeod on the left and Vinni Lettieri on the right. Pavel Buchnevich bumped up to Namestnikov's previous spot on the right wing of the third line, with left wing Jimmy Vesey and center Brett Howden. McLeod and his line actually provided some energy early on for the Rangers, with the trio totaling five shots on goal in the first period _ McLeod getting three of those, plus four hits.
Meanwhile, McQuaid's replacing Claesson led to some reconfiguring of the defense pairs as well. Quinn opted to keep Skjei together with Neal Pionk (assist, game-high six shots), but simply plugging McQuaid into Claesson's spot would have meant putting two right-handed defensemen _ McQuaid and Kevin Shattenkirk _ together and leaving two lefties (Marc Staal and Brendan Smith) together. Quinn opted instead to have three lefty-righty pairs, with Staal playing with Shattenkirk and Smith partnering with McQuaid.
Smith and McQuaid were on the ice when Gaudreau opened the scoring with a spinning backhand shot from the slot at 17:00 of the first period. Each defense pair, in fact, was on for a goal against as the Flames took a 3-0 lead after the first 40 minutes.
Gaudreau's goal was the only one in the first period, but the Flames scored two in a span of 2:34 in the middle of the second. Hathaway redirected a pass from Mark Jankowski at 12:21, and then Gaudreau got free in the high slot and whipped a shot past Henrik Lundqvist at 14:55 for his second of the game and fifth of the season. Lundqvist made 22 saves.
