While the Las Vegas Golden Knights spent Saturday afternoon at a relaxing skate a few blocks south of Madison Square Garden, the New York Rangers were enduring another tough loss on home ice while feeling good about the quality of their performance.
After their quiet afternoon, the Golden Knights will attempt to earn a fourth straight win Sunday night when they face the Rangers, who are 3-8-2 on home ice.
The Golden Knights are attempting to match their longest winning streak of the season; they also won four straight Oct. 14-20. Vegas won a pair of one-goal games at home over the San Jose Sharks and Chicago Blackhawks before opening its five-game road trip on Friday with a 3-0 win against the New Jersey Devils. This streak comes after Vegas dropped four straight and went 3-4-5 in its previous 12 contests.
Vegas mustered only 25 shots on goal Friday but scored two power-play goals when Tomas Hertl and Ivan Barbashev scored in a span of three minutes late in the third. It was the sixth time the Golden Knights scored multiple power-play goals.
Akira Schmid authored a 24-save shutout against his former team and may start again since Carter Hart is day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
“I think a trip like this where you’ve been at home for a long time, you get on the road and the guys, even though they’re playing together every day, now they’re truly like, it’s 25 guys together every day,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy told the team’s official website after the team practiced at Chelsea Piers, just a few minutes south of MSG. “And then you come into a place like this and it just brings back memories.”
The Rangers are struggling to consistently create positive memories at home where they have been outscored 39-22, though their past two showings were vastly improved from an uncompetitive 4-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Nov. 29.
New York’s latest home loss was a 3-2 setback to the Colorado Avalanche when it was beaten on a backhander by Nathan MacKinnon with 2:14 left in overtime on Saturday. The Rangers allowed the game-winning goal after getting a tying goal from Artemi Panarin with 42 seconds left.
Panarin has 22 points (six goals, 16 assists) in his past 15 contests but his goal occurred in a game when the Rangers tied a season-worst by allowing 42 shots on goal while getting held to two goals or fewer for the ninth time on home ice.
“We feel not bad,” Panarin said. “This game, I think we showed good hockey against that kind of team. They’re one of the top, probably, three teams in the league right now, right? So we have one point. We had a good game. We’ll try to build on that.”
“Sometimes you lose and don’t feel good about it,” Rangers captain J.T. Miller said. “There’s other times you don’t get the result, but you can feel good and sleep tonight, knowing that you played a pretty good hockey game.”
The Rangers will hope to feel good with Jonathan Quick possibly starting. Quick was activated from injured reserve after missing six games with a lower-body injury.
If Quick plays on the second night of a back-to-back, it would be his first appearance since a 3-2 loss to the Utah Mammoth on Nov. 22 and seventh overall.
