BUFFALO, N.Y. — With no more games left against the teams ahead of them in the Metropolitan Division standings, if the Rangers are going to improve their position in the division race and try to get home ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs, they are going to have to find ways of motivating themselves to bring their “A’’ game against teams that are behind them.
Friday night, against a Buffalo Sabres team desperate to hang in on the Eastern Conference wild-card chase, the Rangers once again got off to a slow start, falling behind by two goals in the first 30 minutes before fighting back to eventually force overtime. Ultimately, though, they weren’t able to complete the comeback as Jeff Skinner scored at 1:50 of the extra session to give the Sabres a 3-2 victory at KeyBank Center.
Skinner skated up the middle between Mika Zibanejad and Vladimir Tarasenko and beat Jaroslav Halak (31 saves) to win it.
Adam Fox forced overtime when he crashed the net and jammed in a rebound at 9:45 of the third period to tie the game, 2-2, after a tremendous forechecking shift by the fourth line.
With the Sabres starting 21-year-old Devon Levi in goal in his NHL debut, the Rangers made things easy on the youngster in his first professional game after leaving Northeastern University and signing with Buffalo March 17.
The Rangers got just two shots on goal in the first period, the first coming on a Jimmy Vesey wrister from the wing at 10:20.
A minute later, Buffalo took the lead on a goal by J.J. Peterka, who got free at the back post after Niko Mikkola was knocked down by teammate Vincent Trocheck and was a little slow to get up. Buffalo’s Jack Quinn fired a shot from the left wing that was saved by Halak. But Dylan Cozens got the rebound and backhanded a pass across the slot to Peterka, who beat Mikkola to the puck and tapped it in at 11:20.
The Sabres made it 2-0 on a goal by Jordan Greenway, who powered down the right wing on a rush, got by Ben Harpur and shoveled a one-handed, backhanded shot past Halak at 7:39 of the second period.
Rangers coach Gerard Gallant made a tweak to his top two forward lines in the period, switching left wings Artemi Panarin and Chris Kreider, putting Kreider with Mika Zibanejad and Vladimir Tarasenko, and Panarin with Trocheck and Patrick Kane. But it was the Kid Line of Alexis Lafrenière, Filip Chytil and Kaapo Kakko that got the Rangers back into the game.
With the scoreboard showing the shots on goal as 21-5 in favor of the Sabres, the Kids got the Rangers on the board. First, another kid, defenseman Braden Schneider, made an aggressive pinch inside the offensive zone to keep a puck in. He didn’t keep it in, exactly, but he gained control of it, and was able to get it to Lafrenière on the far side, as he and his linemates re-entered the zone.
Lafrenière fired a shot from the right wing that Levi saved, but Chytil got to the rebound and chipped the puck over the goalie. It was headed wide, but Kakko, driving the net, whacked it in for his 15th goal of the season, at 12:17.
That certainly perked the Rangers up and they began to possess the puck more than they had and put pressure on the Buffalo defense. Kakko had a chance to tie the game inside the final two minutes of the period, but his one-timer from the right wing was stopped by a flailing Levi, who flung himself across, from right to left, to get in the way of the puck.
