NEW YORK _ Back at Madison Square Garden after a pair of losses in French-speaking Canada, the Rangers looked like they had turned things around Sunday, jumping all over one of the NHL's elite teams, the Winnipeg Jets, in the first two periods.
But an untimely penalty by Brendan Smith opened the door for Winnipeg to get back in and the Jets scored three goals in the third period, then won in a shootout, 4-3, when Mark Scheifele beat Henrik Lundqvist with the final shot on Vic Hadfield Night.
With Hadfield's No. 11 going up to the Garden rafters before the game, the Rangers leaned on the guy whose jersey is likely to be the next one headed for the ceiling. Lundqvist turned aside 31 shots in regulation and eight more in the 3-on-3 overtime just to get the game to overtime. But the Rangers couldn't pull out the victory.
With Smith in the penalty box for cross-checking, Scheifele scored on the power play to get things started, then Jack Roslovic and Bryan Little scored to tie it and force overtime.
The Rangers are 13-12-3 overall, including 10-4-1 at home.
Before the game, Rangers coach David Quinn identified the giving up of too many odd-man rushes as the biggest thing he has noticed about the team's struggles of the past couple of weeks.
"During the stretch where we had a lot of success, we weren't having any of these problems," Quinn said. "We were giving up a minimum of these odd-man rushes. All of a sudden, after the Islander game (a 7-5 loss to the Isles in Brooklyn Nov. 15), it's been alarming how many odd-man rushes we give up per game."
But the Rangers were much tighter defensively Sunday against the Jets and super sniper Patrik Laine. Laine, who entered with 21 goals in 25 games this season, was matched up against the line of Mika Zibanejad, with wingers Fast and Jimmy Vesey, and was hardly noticeable for the first two periods. The Jets did pepper the Rangers' net with 24 shots over those first two periods _ compared to 11 for the Rangers _ but Lundqvist was sharp in turning them all aside.
Fast put the Rangers in front when he worked a give-and-go with Zibanejad as the latter came out of the penalty box, eventually tapping in a pass from Zibanejad for his second goal of the season at 17:32. Staal, the 31-year-old defenseman, played in his 789th game as a Ranger _ passing former Blueshirts defenseman Dan Girardi for ninth place all-time among the team's skaters _ and scored his second goal of the season on a wrister from the right circle after a feed from Ryan Strome.
Kreider made it 3-0 at 18:54 of the period, deflecting in a pass from Zibanejad just after a power play expired, but a bad penalty by Brendan Smith early in the third period opened the door for Winnipeg to get back in the game and they took full advantage.
Smith cross-checked the Jets' Brandon Tanev into the back boards and when he wasn't immediately called for a penalty, he cross-checked him again and again until the referees finally sent him off at 1:56. Fourteen seconds later, Mark Scheifele scored his 16th goal of the season and 2:26 later, Jack Roslovic added another for the Jets.
