With a three-game winning streak coming into Monday night against the Edmonton Oilers, the New York Rangers knew they would be facing one of the best teams in the NHL, and one that just beat them recently.

Even though there have been some ups and downs so far this year, the team has been playing a bit better following a tough stretch of hockey. However, Monday night was a tall task against the best player on the planet right now.

In the first period, Dylan Garand made a really bad mistake behind the net and ultimately passed the puck right to Connor McDavid with an open net. To little surprise, McDavid was able to score, and it was simply a bad error by Garand to give the Oilers a lead. 

The Rangers started the second period on the man-advantage, but were unable to capitalize and tie the game. Shortly after, the Oilers would strike again for their second goal. 

Leon Draisaitl was able to score his 17th of the season with assists going to Vasily Podkolzin and Mattias Ekholm. New York would challenge this goal with McDavid making some contact with Garand in the crease. However, it was ultimately ruled a goal, and the Rangers went to the penalty kill. 

This is a unit that has been really strong for the team so far this season, and it was once again during a critical stretch. Following a Braden Schneider penalty for hitting the puck out of play, the Rangers went on to a five-on-three kill. However, with a leaking Jaroslav Chmelar coming out of the box, Mika Zibanejad hit him with a pass for his second goal of the year and the third shorthanded goal of the year for the Rangers. 

It was an important sequence for New York, who couldn’t have afforded to go down three goals. Overall, the Rangers played pretty well in the second period. 

Rangers Fall

New York continued their strong play in the third and they were arguably the better team on Monday night. One area that the team is going to have to work on is their power play. With five chances, coming up empty on all of them hurt them in this one. With the net empty, it would be Draisaitl scoring his second of the night, which was also shorthanded.

This was a game that it felt like the Rangers were the better team for most of the night. However, the early mistake by Garand proved to be costly and they never recovered.

Next up for the Rangers will be the penultimate game of their road trip against the Calgary Flames on Wednesday night.