NHL Special Report - the New Jersey Devils lose to the New York Rangers 3-4 in a hard fought battle
The New Jersey Devils were up against the New York Rangers on the 23rd of September at the Madison Square Garden, New York with 15,000 cheering fans in attendance to support their home side.
Initially, the Devils started the game with a lot of aggression with three shots on goal. However, as time went by, the Rangers made a resounding comeback, completely dominating the game. There was a period of almost 5 minutes where the New York Rangers
didn’t lose possession and bombarded the Devils’ goalkeeper with powerful shots. However, they finally managed to net one goal after 16 attempts to score. The goal was scored by Marian Gaborik with some good wrist work from a distance of 8 feet. After the
goal, the Devils re-organized to dominate the period. Not only did they frequently press forward but managed to convert one goal thanks to a counter attack led by Travis Zajac.
With 13:11 on the clock, Travis Zajac hit a fairly good shot from 28 feet that levelled the score for the Devils. In the next 6 minutes, both teams kept fighting for possession. This was due to the fact that both teams were equally competitive during the
game.
John Tortorella, the Rangers head coach said, “Though we had more shots than them, I expected a much better score line. Now let’s home next two periods prove to be productive for us in terms of goals.”
At the end of the first period, the Rangers were able to score one goal out of a total of 16 goal attempts. On the other hand, Devils converted one goal as well out of their nine goal attempts.
The second half began with a mixture of quick passing along with excellent play making from both sides. The home team benefited from this the most and backed by an energetic home support, New Jersey scored through Alexander Frolov. However, a 23 feet shot
from Ilya Kovalchuk at 12:14 pierced into the goal and the game was level at 2-2.
The New York Rangers managed to score for the second time during the course of the second period thanks to a 13 feet pass by Brain Boyle. With the New York Rangers leading at 3-2, they controlled the pace of the game from then onwards. And the period ended
with the Devils not being able to respond to the Rangers lock down defence and offensive skills. At the end of the period, both teams had 10 shots each and the Rangers netted two compared to one from the Devils.
Before the third period began, New York Rangers Marc Staal opined, “now that we are in the lead and into the final period, we will look to score and also suffocate them in defence and form a tight and non-porous defence.”
This without a doubt was true as the Rangers formed a lock down defence. With one goal behind, the Devils pressed on for a goal till the very end. The defence was way ahead of its position on most instances but at 18:14, the Devils on a quick counter attack
caught the Rangers defence off guard and tied the game at 3-3. Both teams were reluctant to attack and a defensive play was witnessed afterwards.
This meant that the game was heading into overtime. During these five minutes of play, the possession and shots were evenly distributed but the Rangers managed to score once and won the match 4-3.
At the end of the match, John Maclean said, “it was unfortunate of us being on the losing side due to the fact that the goal in extra time was one of the lucky goals you would see around.”
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