NEW YORK _ No Mats Zuccarello. No Kevin Hayes. This is who the Rangers are for the remainder of the season, after shipping away fan favorites Zuccarello and Hayes and defenseman Adam McQuaid prior to Monday's NHL trade deadline.
And in their first night together as the Rest-of-the-Season Rangers, the Blueshirts took on the league's top team, the Tampa Bay Lightning, a team with 100 points on the season through their first 63 games.
The new-look Rangers gave the Lightning all they could handle, but in the end, Tampa Bay's talent was too much and the Lightning won, 4-3, in overtime, when Victor Hedman scored with 1:35 left.
The goal came despite the Rangers dominating the bulk of the third period against the Bolts.
Brendan Lemieux, the one addition to the roster after GM Jeff Gorton's wheeling and dealing, made his Rangers debut at left wing on the third line, with center Lias Andersson and right wing Pavel Buchnevich. Lemieux, an agitating winger in the mold of his father, Claude Lemieux, stepped into the spot that had been previously occupied by Filip Chytil, who was a healthy scratch for the third time this season, and who, according to David Quinn, is likely to be out for more than one game this time.
The coach announced at his team's practice Tuesday that he would scratch the 19-year-old rookie.
"It's not abnormal for a 19-year-old to sit out," Quinn said before the game. "He's sat out two games so far this year; he's going to sit out a few more. Over the grand scheme of things, it's not that big of a deal. It seems like it is now because we're going through it right now. But when the dust settles, the season ends, and he comes back with the level of play we all anticipate him to come back with, this isn't going to be talked about."
Quinn said he is looking for "consistent effort" from Chytil, and insisted the inconsistency is simply part of the growing process for the teenager.
"By no stretch of the imagination does he show up trying to be lazy or not work hard," Quinn said, adding that Chytil will be a "great player" for the Rangers. "I think part of the learning curve for any young player is to redefine what hard work is. And I think he's just going through that. I think he's just going through what 19- year-olds go through, learning how to redefine what hard work is; redefining what 'compete' is, and it's non-negotiable. It's got to happen shift in and shift out."
The Lightning had led 2-0 after the first period, on goals by Tyler Johnson and ex-Ranger J.T. Miller, when Mika Zibanejad banged in a pass from Jimmy Vesey at 56 seconds of the second period to get the Rangers into the game.
A roughing penalty against Lemieux early in the second period started a crazy sequence where Buchnevich and Tampa Bay's Yanni Gourde fought each other, the Rangers ended up killing a penalty, only until Miller was called for a slashing penalty. That made it four-on-four for 1:28, and each team scored in the four-on-four, with ex-Ranger Dan Girardi making it 3-1 Tampa Bay at 2:53 and Vesey making it 3-2 at 3:23.
Miller's penalty gave the Rangers their first of four consecutive power plays, and with the momentum generated by all those advantages, they eventually tied the score at 3 when Boo Nieves clanged a shot off the left wing post and the puck ricocheted off Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy and in at 14:14 of the second.
