Saturday Feb. 22 was the New York Rangers first game back after the 4 Nations Face-off against the Buffalo Sabres. The Rangers had six players participate in the tournament, Urho Vaakanainen, J.T. Miller, Vincent Trocheck, Adam Fox, Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider.
“It wasn’t good, there was nothing good about the game.” Rangers head coach Peter Laviolette said after the game.
When asked if execution was the only problem with the Rangers 8-2 loss on Saturday, Laviolette said.
“There’s more to it than that. There’s systems to the game, there’s details to the game, there’s execution with the puck. There’s also speed, there’s also compete. There’s a lot of things that needed to be elevated to a much higher level and like I said they weren’t.”
On Saturday, Feb. 22, the Buffalo Sabres hosted the New York Rangers. It was the third meeting between these clubs this season. The Rangers had split the season series (one regulation win to one regulation loss) with the Sabres coming into tonight’s game.
Igor Shesterkin got the nod in net for New York, as the former Vezina-winner would look to get his team started off on the right foot after the 4-nations Face-off. Things would go anything but as planned for Peter Laviolette’s Rangers, as they gave up the first goal on a turnover and 2-on-1 chance for Buffalo, scored by Jack Quinn.
The Rangers went down 2-0 when Jordan Greenway ragged the puck around the offensive zone and couldn’t be dispossessed. He fired a wrist shot from the point that was tipped in by Sabres Captain Rasmus Dahlin. In a similar way, Tage Thompson made it 3-0 Sabres by taking the puck along the goal-line to the net and fighting off a check from Rangers alternate captain Adam Fox. He battled his way to Shesterkin’s crease where he was able to slip the puck past the Rangers goalie for his 27th of the season, which leads the Sabres.
With no answer coming from the Rangers, the Sabres continued to pile on. Ryan McLeod netted his 13th of the season on a shot from the point that took a deflection thanks to a Rangers player’s stick to give the Sabres a 4-0 lead and then Dahlin scored his second of the game to make it 5-0. With this the Rangers pulled goaltender Igor Shesterkin in favor of Jonathan Quick.
Finally in a five-goal hole, the Rangers found a spark. On the power play in the second period, the Rangers JT Miller passed cross ice to Artemi Panarin who passed hard down the wing to Chris Kreider who tipped in Panarin’s pass to make it 5-1.
Kreids deflects it in to tie the franchise record for power play goals. pic.twitter.com/0uJUoUJWic
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) February 22, 2025
The goal was Kreider’s 116th career power play goal, which tied the Rangers franchise record held by Camille Henry.
Six minutes later, the Rangers found a second goal. This time it was Mika Zibanejad batting the puck out of the air and into the net past Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to cut the Rangers deficit to three. The goal was Zibanejad’s 12th of the season and assisted by Fox and J.T. Miller.
Mika buries his own rebound. pic.twitter.com/nmddqoHRqn
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) February 23, 2025
With Jonathan Quick in net and the team scoring two unanswered goals, Rangers fans might have thought their woes were over. That assumption would be proven dead wrong. As four minutes into the third oeriod, Tage Thompson scored his second of the game on a wrist shot that trickled through Quick to give the Sabres a 6-2 lead. The Sabres weren’t done there either.
When a bad step in the neutral zone from Rangers Adam Fox led to the puck trickling into the Rangers high slot, McLeod pounced for the Sabres taking the puck in 1 on 1 with Quick and making a nifty deke into wrist shot that beat the sprawling 39-year-old.
Henri Jokiharju added insult to injury when he scored a wicked wrister from the point with under a minute remaining in the game to make it 8-2 and that was all she wrote.
The Rangers fell to the last place team in the NHL’s Eastern Conference, by a six-goal margin. The silver lining is this loss can be chalked up to rust after the 4 Nations break and the team gets the chance to go right back out there on Sunday with a game against the Pittsburgh Penguins slated for 3:30 p.m. puck drop.
