Rangers-Predators: New York Misses Marian Gaborik in 2-1 Loss To Nashville

It's not the way the New York Rangers wanted to come out after a heartfelt 3-1 win over the New Jersey Devils on Saturday night.

They clearly missed their leading scorer Marian Gaborik at times in this game, but there was no excuse for not capitalizing on the opportunities they had all night long.

The Blueshirts had a total of 38 shots on goal, but were only able to bury one of them.

Sure, Dan Ellis had himself a solid performance in net for Nashville, but the Rangers have no excuse for scoring just once on 38 shots.

With the Rangers having another “energetic-less” start to this game, the Predators were all over them early. Henrik Lundqvist had to be good early on, which seems to be the case each and every night.

The Predators scored first. Jordan Tootoo’s deflection on a Calvin, I mean, Kevin Klein shot from the point made New York pay for their mistakes and saw them trailing by the score of 1-0.

The Rangers were outshot in that period 11-nine.

The second period just may have been the most careless hockey I have seen from this team all season long. Lundqvist had to bail out the atrocious defense five, yes I counted, five times to open up the second and lucky for them it wasn’t 4-0 at that point.

At about the midpoint, the Rangers were put on a 5-3 powerplay. Olli Jokinen’s slapper rocketed off of the backboards and onto the blade of Vinny Prospal, who snuck one past Ellis for his 12th goal of the season, tying the game for the Rangers.

Following that, rookie defenseman Michael Del Zotto was called for a double minor, the first for an “iffy” penalty call, but the second for sharing his feelings about the call with the official.

The Predators capitalized. \

Michael Rozsival’s attempted clear caromed off the back of Ryan Callahan and right to Colin Wilson. Wilson quickly roofed a shot over Lundqvist and just like that it was 2-1.

Upon arriving to the bench, Del Zotto got an earful from head coach John Tortorella and was sent to the end of the bench where he would remain until the end of the period.

Tortorella then had the youngster start the third period on the ice, obviously deciding that he learned his lesson.

I think Torts actually handled this correctly.

He scared the living tar out of Michael after taking an unnecessary penalty, but made sure to give him a chance to redeem himself in the third period. He would have been wrong to keep him on the bench for the remainder of the game—that wouldn’t have accomplished anything.

Although the third period did not have any scoring, it sure was an eventful one for the Blueshirts. They registered 18 shots on goal, ten of which came in the final minutes, but Dan Ellis shut them down.

This is where the Rangers miss a player like Gaborik, who is known to score goals in critical situations. Unfortunately, no one stepped up and filled Gaborik’s spot tonight.

You cannot help but feel for goaltender Henrik Lundqvist. The guy works his behind off, makes unbelievable saves to keep his mates in the game, but they do not return the favor, giving him very limited help in front of his net and no offensive support.

It has been a theme all season long and if I were Hank, I would be pretty fed up by now.

The defense was not the defense we saw against the Devils, letting loose pucks in front of the net and constantly crashing into Henrik in his crease.

Oh and the whole seven defensemen on the bench was just ridiculous. What was the point in that?

Banged up?

Don’t give me that, Torts. We are not dumb.

I still like what I am seeing from newly acquired center Olli Jokinen.

First of all, it is only his fourth game with the team, yet when Nashville took a timeout in the third period, Jokinen took charge of the Rangers bench and detailed what he wanted the squad to do when they took the ice again for the faceoff.

I love that sort of stuff, especially when you are the new guy on the block but still have the courage to do it.

There are only two games left until we break for the Olympics, which as a reminder, I will be covering live from Vancouver.

New Yorks' next game will be in Pittsburgh against the Penguins at the Igloo on Friday night. Personally, I’m not looking forward to that one, because Mellon Arena has been a house of horrors for the Rangers for the past three years.

You can also read my postgame analysis on Blueshirt Banter .

(Images courtesy of AP Photo)