This season, there have been a number of games in which Mika Zibanejad has not looked like himself.
The Rangers' No. 1 center has struggled with puck management on both sides of the game with a stick in his hands, minus four points in the team's 6-3 loss, and it all got ugly with a turnover-plagued performance. I lifted my head. Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden against the NHL-leading Jets.
“I can't speak for Mika,” head coach Peter Laviolette said when asked if the Swede was frustrated. “We're counting on Mika. He's an impact player for us. It's not him, but when you're trying to make things happen and you're on offense, sometimes things are different for us. It could go in that direction. We didn't talk about him specifically like they did for us as a group tonight.”
Despite the Rangers' hot start, the Jets scored first just 57 seconds into the game after Zibanejad appeared to be trying to break through Artemi Panarin.
The puck went to no one and Winnipeg easily returned the puck to the zone.
Mark Scheifele, who was left alone, received the puck and put it in to make it 1-0.
Zibanejad also scored in the O-zone in the second period, sparking an odd-man rush for the Jets, who regained the lead at 3-2 on a goal by Kyle Connor.
Then, after Zibanejad pickpocketed in the neutral zone to start the third period and the Jets pinballed the puck back into the net, Scheifele scored his second goal of the game, putting his team up to two points with just over a minute left in the final frame. took the lead. .
“Everyone has individual incidents where they could have done something different, whether it was a puck decision or being a little more responsible when pressing in the offensive zone,” Ravi said. Oret said. “There are definitely situations where we could have done better.Offensively, I still think we were aggressive.
“This is one of those games where you throw punches and try to beat your opponent and create offense, and sometimes you have to cover and try to not come back and get hit the other way. Tonight we played those games. Events have taken their toll on us.”
Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin saved 27 of 32 shots in their fourth loss of the season.
The pair of Quandre Miller and Jacob Trouba have been on the ice for three of the Jets' last four goals, but one of them was an empty netter, so they were unavailable. Miller finished with a minus-4 rating, the worst of any Blueshirt defenseman, in 19 minutes, 19 seconds of ice time.
