NEW YORK — On the night when the Garden celebrated the arrival of Patrick Kane to help the Rangers go a potential Stanley Cup run, it was a vital cog in the Blueshirts’ previous run to the Final that stole the show against his former team.
Playing in his 1,000th career game, Derrick Brassard, who helped the Rangers reach the 2014 Stanley Cup Final, scored two goals to throw ice water on the Blueshirts’ warm greetings for Kane in Ottawa’s 5-3 victory.
But make no mistake, Kane, the three-time Stanley Cup winner and former Hart Trophy recipient, is here to try to help the Rangers win their first Cup in 29 years, and he’s excited to be in New York to do precisely that.
“The energy in the city and throughout the organization is pretty high right now,” Kane said during his introductory press conference before the game. “It’s great to be a part of that.
“I just think [the Rangers are] a great team. They obviously had a great run [to the Conference finals] last year. It seems like expectations are pretty high around here this year as well. So I think it’s a good thing. It’s good to have those expectations and have people thinking that you’re going to win.”
So the Rangers will need to call Kane’s first game a hiccup. He was scoreless with 4 shots on goal in 19:36 of ice time. The Rangers were 0-for-4 on the power play as Kane spent the majority of time with the unit that looked out of sync. That included a 5-minute major against the Senators’ Austin Watson in the first period.
The Rangers opened the scoring at 6:31 of the first period when, on the penalty kill, Mike Zibanejad poked the puck away near his own blue line back to Adam Fox, who quickly found a streaking Chris Kreider behind the defense for a breakaway goal against former Ranger Cam Talbot and a 1-0 lead.
Ottawa took the lead in the second when Shane Pinto and Brassard scored 21 seconds apart midway through the period against Jaroslav Halak, starting after Igor Shesterkin minded the net in Wednesday’s 3-2 overtime win at Philadelphia.
Captain Jacob Trouba tied it two minutes later on assists from Artemi Panarin and Vincent Troucheck and the Rangers retook the lead, 3-2, at 14:54 of the second when Vladimir Tarasenko, who despite Kane’s arrival still may be the gem from the trade deadline and scored Wednesday’s night’s overtime winner, scored unassisted.
Brassard tied it at 3-3 1:35 into the third period and Claude Giroux gave the Senators a 4-3 lead at 3:26. Tim Stutzle added an empty-netter on Brady Tkachuk’s second assist to close out the scoring.
Kane paired with former Blackhawks teammate Panarin on the second line with Trocheck.
“Today’s the first time I’ve seen him in a long time,” Kane said before the game. “He’s a fun guy to be around. I definitely missed that for the last six years. We picked up right where we left off. Hopefully, it’s the same on the ice.
“It might not be as smooth as everyone thinks it’s going to go. There might be some bumps in the road, but hopefully, in due time, we can figure it out.”
They’ll have 21 more regular-season games to figure it out before the playoffs begin.
