The New York Rangers and Utah Hockey Club share a commonality of being .500 teams and facing similar deficits in the wild-card races of their respective conferences.
Both teams are hoping to make up some ground on Thursday night when the Rangers visit the Utah Hockey Club in Salt Lake City.
The Rangers unexpectedly are in this position after reaching the Eastern Conference finals for the second time in three seasons last spring. New York opened the season with a 12-4-1 record before limping to a 4-15-0 mark over its next 19 games.
The Rangers are showing modest improvement by going 4-1-2 in their past seven games and getting a point in five straight contests (3-0-2).
New York nearly won a third straight one-goal game Tuesday but instead wound up with a 3-2 overtime loss to the Colorado Avalanche. The setback left them five points behind the Columbus Blue Jackets for the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.
After Sam Carrick and Adam Edstrom scored in regulation, the Rangers were stopped twice on a power play in overtime before allowing the game-winning goal with 37 seconds left.
“Good to the end, but we’ve got to get a win,” defenseman Adam Fox said after New York allowed the tying goal with 1:13 left in regulation. “I guess it’s the way you lose. “I mean, if you don’t play well, you don’t play well. But not coming away with two points in that game is definitely frustrating.”
“The guys, I mean, they competed and did everything we wanted to do for 58 minutes,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. “It’s really difficult walking away not getting that extra point.”
Utah earned a 6-5 overtime win in New York on Oct. 12 to improve to 3-0-0 on the season. Utah reached 16-11-5 by winning four straight games from Dec. 12-20 before going 2-7-2 in its past 11 contests.
Utah is 1-3-0 thus far on its seven-game homestand.
Utah was held to three goals or fewer for the ninth time since its four-game win streak in its 5-3 loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday. The team squandered a pair of one-goal leads and allowed four goals over the final two periods in the setback.
After taking five penalties in the second period, the loss left Utah six points behind the Calgary Flames for the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
“From myself and everyone, I think we’ve got way more. That’s about it,” Utah’s Nick Bjugstad said. “I don’t really have more of an explanation. It’s frustrating because we know we can be better. We know we could have a better record.”
Utah’s slide is occurring as leading scorer Clayton Keller is quiet offensively along with third-leading scorer Dylan Guenther.
Keller had an assist Tuesday but has one goal in his past nine games.
Guenther has not scored in his past nine contests since scoring in four straight games.
–Field Level Media
