They’ve had struggles with their goaltending all season and they haven’t lived up to expectations to this point. But the Carolina Hurricanes still are a good team and the Rangers know that.
If they needed confirmation, though, they got it Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden when the Hurricanes, riding a three-game winning streak, came to town for the first game of the calendar year and thumped the Rangers, 6-1.
Carolina dominated the special teams, scoring two power-play goals in four opportunities and keeping the Rangers — who had the best power play in the league coming in — off the board on their three chances with the man advantage.
“Anytime you lose a specialty teams battle, it’s tough to win games, especially whenever they score two and we score none on the power play,’’ a glum-looking Vincent Trocheck said. “We’ve got to be better.’’
“Their special teams were clicking, ours weren’t,’’ said Chris Kreider, who scored the Rangers’ only goal. “It’s something that we’ve been able to lean on all year, and it’s hard to chase a game against that team. They’re pretty good with a lead.’’
Andrei Svechnikov had two goals and former Rangers defenseman Brady Skjei had three assists.
Carolina entered the game last in the NHL in save percentage, yet goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov was excellent while stopping 28 of 29 shots as the Hurricanes evened the season series at 1-1.
The Rangers (25-10-1, 51 points) had beaten Carolina (21-13-4, 46 points) in the teams’ first meeting on Nov. 2 at the Garden. They don’t see each other again until March 12, when they meet for the final time of the season, in Raleigh.
Carolina got the early lead on a power-play goal by Jack Drury — the nephew of Rangers GM Chris Drury — at 1:49 of the first period. They made it 2-0 on another power-play goal, this one by Svechnikov with 30.4 seconds remaining in the period.
The Rangers scored at 4:30 of the second period, less than a minute after…
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