Rangers hand over victory to NHL-worst Flames for third straight loss

CALGARY, Alberta — One other determined opponent, one other disappointing defeat.

For the second straight recreation, the Rangers handed over a victory their challengers badly wanted. After falling in additional time to the beforehand winless Sharks earlier this week, the Blueshirts misplaced 5-1 to a Flames workforce that hadn’t gained since their first recreation of the season coming into Sunday evening’s contest at Scotiabank Saddledome.

With the win, the Flames snapped a dropping skid of eight consecutive video games.

The Rangers, however, dropped their third contest in a row for the second time this season.

The worst popularity an NHL workforce can have is a simple recreation on the schedule. Twice now, the Rangers have allowed groups struggling much more than they’re to return in and get what they want towards them.

San Jose and the Flames — each ranked thirty second within the NHL at one level this week — regarded assured coming right into a matchup with the Rangers. Every recreation performed out accordingly.

Calgary carried a league-worst common of 1.67 targets per recreation into Sunday’s assembly, however throughout the first 10 minutes of the sport, they’d posted two targets on the Rangers. The Flames finally set a brand new season excessive of 5 targets in regulation.

The defensive self-discipline the Rangers performed with the primary handful of video games has all however evaporated.

The offensive struggles have solely continued, with the workforce registering just one purpose or zero for the sixth time by means of their first 10 video games.

The Rangers gave up the primary purpose of the sport contained in the two-minute mark for the second time in as many video games, when Nazem Kadri sniped one previous Blueshirts goalie Igor Shesterkin from the slot for the early 1-0 lead.

Controlling the puck for a superb portion of the opening body, the Flames made it a 2-0 recreation after Kevin Bahl related on a shot from the highest of the zone. Calgary dumped 12 photographs on Shesterkin by means of the primary 20 minutes, however the Rangers managed to get on the board earlier than the top of the interval.

Noah Laba registered his first profession NHL purpose to chop the Flames lead in half, driving to the web and burying the puck on Calgary netminder Dustin Wolf.

Regardless of outshooting the house workforce 13-11 within the center body, the Rangers couldn’t break by means of. Yegor Sharangovich gave the Flames a 3-1 lead with a purpose off the frenzy, which Shesterkin solely received a bit of earlier than it discovered twine.

The Flames’ shorthanded purpose within the third interval solely twisted the knife into this already struggling Rangers workforce.

After Mika Zibanejad whiffed on a shot on the ability play, Calgary jumped out on a two-on-one rush that ended with a Blake Coleman purpose.