Rangers waste solid effort by goaltending, defense in 2-0 loss to Stars

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The Dallas Stars’ combination of forward Jason Robertson and goaltender Jake Oettinger was too much for the New York Rangers on Saturday night.

Robertson broke a scoreless tie at 12:49 of the third period and added an empty-net goal to support Oettinger’s 22-save performance in a 2-0 victory that assured the Stars of home ice against the Minnesota Wild when the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs begin next week.

The Rangers limited one of the NHL’s most potent offenses to 18 shots before Robertson’s empty-netter, and Igor Shesterkin was far sharper than he was in New York’s 5-3 loss to the Buffalo Sabres in the home finale three days earlier.

But for the NHL-worst 10th time this season, the offense failed to deliver. The power play, which had been among the League’s best since the Olympic break, went 0-for-5 and managed just three shots on goal.

The Stars weren’t much better, but they made the last of their four power plays count when Robertson took the rebound of Matt Duchene’s shot in the lower left circle, took a step to his right and roofed a backhander to put Dallas up 1-0.

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Robertson, who can become a restricted free agent this summer, tied Wyatt Johnston for the team lead with his 44th of the season when he hit the empty net at 19:01.

It was a game that didn’t see either team generate much offense — high-danger chances in all situations were 8-5 for the Stars. The Rangers will try to rediscover the scoring touch they’d shown since the Olympic break when they visit the Florida Panthers on Monday night in the second of their three-game, season-ending road trip. They finish their season Wednesday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning

Rangers come up empty in 2-0 loss to Dallas

The Rangers had the better of play in a boring first period that saw neither team manage a shot on goal for the first eight minutes. The Rangers outshot Dallas 5-3, out-attempted the Stars 13-7, outhit them 10-5 and earned the only two power plays. New York spent most of the period controlling the puck in the offensive zone, but the Stars largely kept the Blueshirts to the outside.

The Rangers’ best chance came with less than five minutes left when J.T. Miller got the puck alone in the slot and fired, but Oettinger was in the right spot to make the save and prevent a rebound. The Stars mounted little pressure on Shesterkin, who spent most of the period watching the action at the other end of the ice on the video board.

The action picked up in the second period, largely because of the plethora of power plays. They had three, including a 5-on-3 advantage for 58 seconds in the final two minutes that was cut short by a double-minor for high-sticking assessed to Vincent Trocheck at 19:51.

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Dallas had nearly three minutes of power-play time early in the third period, but the Rangers’ penalty kill kept the Stars at bay. But that wasn’t the case after Rangers defenseman Matthew Robertson was called for holding at 11:39.

Jason Robertson’s slick move broke the scoreless tie, and the Rangers managed just one shot on goal until his empty-netter put the game away.

Key takeaways after Rangers lose 2-0 to the Stars in Dallas

Shooting blanks for the 10th time

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The Rangers lead the NHL in times being shut out, though Saturday’s loss was just the third time they were blanked on the road.

There wasn’t much offense generated by either team all night. Most distressing was the fact that the Rangers never put any pressure on the Stars from the time Robertson put Dallas ahead to his game-sealing empty-netter.

Coach Mike Sullivan had no complaints about his team’s play when asked about the fact that one of every eight games this season ended up with a “0” on the Rangers’ side of the scoreboard.

“The teams played really good. I’m really happy with how we’ve played here down the stretch,” he said. “We’ve competed hard.”

Power outage

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The Rangers can’t say they didn’t have opportunities with the extra man. They spent eight minutes on the power play, which was 5-for-9 in the previous three games but did nothing with all that time on the man-advantage.

How futile were they?

According to Natural Stat Trick, the Blueshirts did not have a single high-danger scoring chance on the power play. For a team that’s been relying on extra-man goals for a big part of its offense, this kind of production was a one-way ticket to losing.

Winning by losing?

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The loss kept the Rangers last in the Eastern Conference and fourth from the bottom in the overall NHL standings. According to Tankathon, they have a 9.5 percent chance of winning the NHL Draft Lottery next month.

Beating the Panthers and Lightning to end the season might make Rangers fans feel good. But for a team that lacks premium young talent, the better the chance of winning the lottery, the brighter the future for the Blueshirts.

Rangers fans should ask themselves this question: Would they rather have swept the Islanders last season and finished ahead of their local rival — or lost a couple of those games, ended up behind them and picked Matthew Schaefer?

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