So much for not getting sucked into P.K. Subban’s agitation, even if the Montreal defenseman says he is not an agitator.
After drawing a slashing call on Subban 7:41 into the first period tonight, Brandon Dubinsky got involved with the Canadiens rookie again less than five minutes later, and took a needless roughing penalty.
“He went down pretty easy,” Dubinsky said, ruing his decision to get involved with Subban. “I’ve got to make sure I focus and stay disciplined in those situations, and understand what type of guy that guy is, and that I can’t put a hand on him, or he might go down, and the ref might give a penalty.”
The Rangers were ahead at the time thanks to Brian Boyle’s goal, but the Canadiens took advantage on the power play when Roman Hamrlik’s slapper deflected off the skate of Dan Girardi. Subban set up Tomas Plekanec with a perfect pass on another Montreal power play at 14:50 of the first period and Andrei Kostitsyn capped the Canadiens’ burst of three goals in 2:49 with a slap shot from high in the slot.
The Rangers battled back in the third period, but could not manage anything after Mats Zuccarello’s goal with 13:03 left, leaving with a 3-2 loss in which it took Henrik Lundqvist standing up for himself to provide a spark for the comeback try.
Lundqvist jumped on Max Pacioretty with 2:13 left in the second period after the Canadiens winger made no attempt to stop before crashing into him, and from that point on, the Rangers played with the kind of intensity that they knew they should have had from the drop of the puck.
“I’d be a rich man if I knew (why) – we all would,” Sean Avery said. “It’s just the psychology of sports, I guess. I don’t know. Sometimes it’s there, sometimes it isn’t. We just didn’t turn it around in time.”
John Tortorella said that he loved seeing Lundqvist get fired up. Here’s all the coach had to say after tonight’s game…
POWER SCOURGE:
After getting the only goal of Thursday’s game on the power play, the Rangers went 0-for-4 with the man advantage tonight and looked atrocious in the process of extending to 2-for-29 over the last nine games.
On their first three power plays of the night, the Rangers had a grand total of one shot on goal. They had four cracks at the net while skating 6-on-4 after Hal Gill hooked Brian Boyle with 1:05 left in the game, but were unable to solve Carey Price, who made 20 of his 32 saves in the third period.
Lundqvist, despite giving up two power play goals, was the Rangers’ best penalty killer as he stopped Mathieu Darche on three straight point-blank attempts in the second period.
Tonight was the first time the Rangers gave up two power-play goals in a game since December 16 against Phoenix, a game in which they did manage to come back from a 3-1 deficit, winning 4-3 in a shootout.
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