RANGERS DROP HOME OPENER 

  Game Summary                      COL: S. Varlamov (W)   NYR: H. Lundqvist (L)          Event Summary

–       POWER SURGE – The Rangers were 2-for-6 (9:53) on the power play in the contest. New York recorded at least two power play goals in a game 10 times last season. The Blueshirts concluded the preseason this year by tallying at least one power play goal in five straight contests.

–       WHAT A LINE – The line of Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad, and Pavel Buchnevich tallied three points (two goals, one assist) and registered 14 shots on goal in tonight’s contest.

–       NUMBERS GAME – For the first time in franchise history, the Rangers’ season-opening roster does not include a player who has a single-digit jersey number.

–       SHOOTING GALLERY – The Rangers recorded 39 shots on goal in tonight’s game, and seven different Blueshirts registered at least three shots on goal in the contest. New York registered at least 11 shots on goal in all three periods in tonight’s game.

–       HOT AT THE DOT – New York won 35 of 55 faceoffs in tonight’s game (63.6%), including 16 of 24 faceoffs taken in the offensive zone (66.7%).

–       FULL HOUSE – Tonight’s game was the Rangers’ 274th consecutive sellout (227 regular season games, 47 playoff games over the span). The Blueshirts’ sellout streak dates back to November 3, 2011.

–       Mika Zibanejad tallied two goals, both on the power play, and led all skaters with eight shots on goal, 18 faceoff wins (18-for-24; 75.0%), and two takeaways in 21:15 of ice time. Zibanejad tied single-game career-highs in shots on goal, faceoff wins, and power play goals in tonight’s contest. In addition, Zibanejad won 10 of 11 faceoffs he took in the offensive zone (90.9%), including eight of 10 offensive zone faceoffs while the Rangers were on the power play. He tied his career-high in power play goals last season with four, and he has tallied 39 points (16 goals, 23 assists) in 57 games as a member of the Rangers.

–       Kevin Shattenkirk tallied his first assist/point as a Ranger, led the Rangers with three blocked shots, and recorded two shots on goal while skating in a team-high 23:48 of ice time in his Rangers debut. Shattenkirk has now recorded 299 points in his NHL career. He is one of two NHL defensemen who registered at least 25 power play points in each of the last four seasons (2013-14 – 2016-17; along with Erik Karlsson).

–       Mats Zuccarello recorded an assist in 17:43 of ice time. He led the Rangers in points in each of the last two seasons and established a career-high with 44 assists in 2016-17. Since the start of the 2013-14 season, 174 of Zuccarello’s 229 points have either been a goal or the primary assist on a goal (76.0%).

–       Pavel Buchnevich tallied an assist and recorded four shots on goal while skating in a single-game career-high, 18:22 of ice time. He has registered at least one point in 17 of 42 career NHL games (eight goals, 13 assists).

–       Filip Chytil made his NHL/Rangers debut in tonight’s contest. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Chytil, who is 18 years and 30 days old, became the fourth-youngest player to appear in a game with the Rangers in franchise history; the only players who were younger were Harry Lumley (17 years, 42 days on Dec. 23, 1943), Len Wharton (17 years, 81 days on Mar. 4, 1945), and Don Raleigh (17 years, 125 days on Oct. 30, 1943). In addition, Chytil became the first 18-year-old to appear in a game with the Rangers since Dan Blackburn on Apr. 13, 2002 at Philadelphia, as well as the first 18-year-old skater (forward or defenseman) to play in a game with the Rangers since Manny Malhotra on Apr. 18, 1999 vs. Pittsburgh (the contest was Wayne Gretzky’s final NHL game). Also according to the Elias Sports Bureau, Chytil is the sixth-youngest player to appear in an NHL game since expansion (1967-68 season); the only players who were younger were Patrick Marleau, Grant Mulvey, Martin Lapointe, Jordan Staal, and Chris Joseph. Chytil is also the first player to wear jersey No. 72 in a regular season game in franchise history.

–       Henrik Lundqvist made his 12th consecutive start in a season-opening game for the Rangers in tonight’s contest (dating back to 2006-07). By starting the regular season opener tonight, Lundqvist became the first goaltender in franchise history to start 12 season-opening games, as well as 12 consecutive regular season openers (Ed Giacomin started in 11 consecutive regular season openers from 1965-66 – 1975-76).

–       Alain Vigneault became the first Rangers head coach to start five consecutive seasons behind the Rangers’ bench since Phil Watson from 1955-56 – 1959-60.

–       Tony DeAngelo registered three shots on goal while making his Rangers debut in tonight’s contest. DeAngelo is the second player in franchise history to wear jersey No. 77 in a regular season game (the first was Phil Esposito).

–       David Desharnais won seven of 11 faceoffs (63.6%), including three of five faceoffs in the defensive zone (60.0%), and registered three shots on goal while making his Rangers debut in tonight’s contest.

–       Paul Carey made his Rangers debut in tonight’s contest.

• Alain Vigneault, New York Rangers head coach

On today’s game…

“I thought it was a good hockey game.  Both teams had some good looks. There is no doubt that their defense beat us up the ice a couple times and our gap could have been just a little bit tighter.  We would have taken some of those opportunities away, but the counter side to that is I thought we played fast and had a lot of good looks.  Best player on the ice was their goaltender tonight.  He played a great game and had some big saves.”

On the power play…

“Our power play tonight capitalized twice and permitted us to get back in the game. They had some really good looks.  There is no doubt that Mika’s (Zibanejad) unit tonight was making some good plays, so that’s a real positive sign for our team here. There is no doubt that Kevin (Shattenkirk) sees the ice well and finds the open possibilities.” 

On Filip Chytil’s play tonight…

“He had that great look right at the beginning of the game, that 2-on-1 there.  I think if he makes that play there it gets him going.  Then because of all the specialty time, power play and penalty killing, he didn’t get out there as much.  But it was a first game for a young man.  I’m sure he was excited and he’ll be better next game.”                 

• Jared Bednar, Colorado Avalanche head coach 

Thoughts on victory overall…

“Nice to come in and win, obviously tough crowd and tough building. Great crowd, it was energetic. Liked a lot of the things we did but I think our puck decisions caused us a lot of scoring chances, but Varley (Varlamov) was outstanding.”

On the 14 minor penalties called in tonight’s game …

“You have to keep your sticks on the ice. I agreed with every penalty called. We got beat a couple times. First-period puck decisions we turned it over and they come on an odd-man rush and we were forced to take a penalty. The d-zone we hemmed into the third. Joe [Compher] got a slashing penalty, we took a hooking penalty behind the net in the offensive zone, 200 feet away from our net. We’ve got to clean some of that up, you can’t be slashing now especially the way that they have been calling it. We have to keep hammering it home to the players and they will get it. They are smart.”

On beating a pretty good team on the road after last year…

“Well I think it feels good, you know there is a sense that we can head into the right direction. I think our guys believe in what we are doing and I like our group and the young guys that we have incorporated into it. The leaders are stepping up more than they ever have before, now it is their team. There is no discrepancy there, there is not a lot of old guys around. It is our young core they all fit in with each other. So hopefully we can find some chemistry with our team and really come together and keep improving.” 

• Mika Zibanejad, New York Rangers forward 

On trying to get the third goal…

“The one power play when I came down, I didn’t get that much of it. It was just a bad shot. I think the second one when it came across he [Semyon Varlamov] did a good job pushing over and taking the angle away from me. I got it up, and I thought it was a good shot. It was a good save. It [is unfortunate] to not be able to get the third goal for the team and be able to give us a chance to win.”

On the team’s power play…

“We’ve been working on it quite a bit and we try to talk. I think we did a good job on the power play today. We were working back pucks and really earning and making the most of our chances. We just have to take it a step further and score one when we really need it.  I think we created some good momentum from the power play. We got a couple of goals.” 

• Ryan McDonagh, New York Rangers defenseman 

On the team getting their feet under them at the start with all the emotion in the building…

“We had a lot of energy and they took advantage of us missing our check, capitalized on a power play.  We talked after the first about trying to make sure we didn’t give up odd-man rushes against a team like that – a good transition team and a lot of skill.  You can’t give them too many looks and odd-man rushes and I think that was the difference here tonight.”

On whether he thought it was only a matter of time before the team scored their next goal…

“We put pucks behind them and stayed in the o-zone.  I thought we were generating some chances.  Credit the goalie, he was huge there for them at times.  We could do a better job of maybe taking away his eyes, but at the same time you can’t get frustrated and caught up and try to force things.” 

• Henrik Lundqvist, New York Rangers goaltender

On whether it was difficult for him to get comfortable early with all the emotion in the building…

“No, I think the biggest thing when you haven’t played for 10 days, you just try to go out there and build your game.  We talked about going into this game that their strength is their speed and transition game.  Looking at the result here and what happened, I think that’s where they really hurt us – in the odd-man rushes when their D jumped in almost every time to make it a 3-on-2 or 4-on-3.  Other than that, I thought we played really well, good energy, we created a lot.  In the third, we definitely had our chances to tie this game up.”

On whether he thought it was only a matter of time before the team scored their next goal with all the chances tonight…

“Well you never know, but obviously you try to stay position there.  Going into the third, we had a good feeling.  I thought we played in a way that we didn’t have to take chances.  We knew that going into the third we were good enough to create good chances from the way we were playing and using our system.  Then we came up with three, four really big chances in the third; we just didn’t cash in on those.” 

On the disappointment of losing the opener…

“Of course you want to start the season the right way, starting with a win.  I think we did a lot of good things – things that we should bring for the next game and really build on.  The result was not what we were looking for, but a lot of good things to build on.”

• Kevin Shattenkirk, New York Rangers defenseman

His thoughts on the game tonight…

“We had a lot of good seam passes, a lot of good chances. I thought [Semyon] Varlamov made some key saves there down the stretch. Other plays and other areas of the game, we just need to tighten up and we need to be a little bit more patient when you do turn pucks over in the neutral zone. We let up a lot of odd-man rushes tonight.”

On the team’s process…

“I think honestly on most nights if we make some of those mistakes that we did tonight we will be on the wrong side of things, but I think we saw firsthand tonight the level of play was much higher than it was in the preseason. They came out to play tonight. We fed into what they do well – transition hockey, making skilled plays. They are a fast team and we just kind of fed them in the wrong areas and they were able to capitalize.”

On playing his first game as a New York Ranger…

“I think the result still stings right now. When I look back on it a long time from now it will obviously be a great moment for me. It’s still a special night in my career. But right now I think I am just a little upset with the result and some plays out there that I felt like I could have had a better effect on the game and helped our team out a little bit more.”

• Semyon Varlamov, Colorado Avalanche goaltender

On his strong play tonight…

“Yeah, I played like I did a couple years ago. Every year is a different year. I definitely felt good out there. I felt very confident, I had a couple good saves at the beginning of the game, and those saves gave me confidence. I saw lots of shots from the outside, which is thanks to my teammates.” 

On the key to staying focused while being peppered by shots…

“You have to stay focused all 60 minutes. You play against the Rangers, and you never know, they have a very good offense. I think they played a really good game. In the third period, we kind of sat back for all 20 minutes, and I wasn’t happy about it because we were giving up so many shots.” 

On giving the team a lift with strong play in the first period…

“The first period was huge. We scored a quick two goals. It always helps to play with a lead. They came back and tied the game, but for us, it was key to play a solid second period. We knew how aggressive the Rangers play in the first period, so it was a key today to play a solid first period and score a couple goals.”

• Tyson Barrie, Colorado Avalanche defenseman

On Varlamov’s play tonight…

“That year we made the playoffs, he was out of his mind. He was unbeatable. He’s looked like that during the pre-season, and tonight I thought he was outstanding. When Varly (Varlamov) is on, he’s fun to watch, and it gives us confidence. We’re a young team and were going to make some mistakes, but when he’s on, it’s crazy.” 

On his goal and the pass from Alex Kerfoot…

“Yeah, that was a sweet dish. His patience, it’s fun to watch. I just came in late, and didn’t even really call for it, he just put it on my tape, and I fired as quick as I could.”

On playing more minutes with Erik Johnson…

“EJ (Erik Johnson) carried a big load and I felt like I was out there a lot too. We love it though. It’s a big responsibility, but we have to play those minutes and we have to play well if we’re going to be good. I thought EJ was great tonight, especially on the penalty kill. We’re looking forward to 81 more of those.”

–       Tomorrow (Friday, Oct. 6): Practice, 12:00 p.m. at MSG Training Ctr

–       Next Game: Saturday, Oct. 7 at Toronto (7:00 p.m. ET – TV: MSG Network)

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