NEW YORK — Brady Tkachuk was a thorn in the Rangers’ side on Friday. The Ottawa Senators captain scored the tying goal with less than a minute left in regulation, then scored the winning goal with 17.4 seconds left in the overtime to deal the Rangers one of their more painful losses yet this season, a 3-2 setback at Madison Square Garden.
The Rangers are back in action at the Garden on Saturday when they face off against Chicago at 7:30 p.m.
Tkachuk scored on a partial breakaway after Ottawa goalie Cam Talbot made a save on Artemi Panarin at the other end, and Tkachuk ended up with the puck, racing down the ice with Panarin chasing him. Tkachuk deked and slipped a backhander through Igor Shesterkin’s pads for the winner.
Tkachuk’s deflection of a shot by Thomas Chabot tied the score at 2-2 with 48.4 seconds left in regulation, to force overtime after Mika Zibanejad’s 12th goal of the season, at 6:03 of the third period, had given the Rangers the lead.
The Senators thought they’d tied it earlier, when Shesterkin saved former Ranger Tyler Motte’s shot, jamming it up against the goalpost, with 7:18 remaining. Dylan Gambrell jammed Shesterkin’s pad and the puck across the goal line, but after looking at video replay, the officials ruled the play had ended with Shesterkin’s original save on Motte, and ruled no goal.
Shesterkin, who made 34 saves, was back in the net for the first time since he told reporters he was “ashamed’’ of the way he’d played in Monday’s loss to the Devils. Backup Jaroslav Halak played and got the win in Wednesday’s game against the Senators in Ottawa, but coach Gerard Gallant said he didn’t rest Shesterkin in that game because of his comments Monday night.
“No, nothing to do with that,’’ Gallant said at Friday’s morning skate. “I mean, we make a schedule up and we get it going. … He was pretty disappointed in himself last game, and he wants to get back in there whenever he gets back in there and play real hard and play well.’’
Shesterkin didn’t have much to do early in the first period. Ottawa, given a four-minute power play after a high-sticking penalty to Filip Chytil 1:20 into the game, managed just one shot on the extended man advantage and had just that one shot until Motte drove in from the left wing, cut to his backhand and forced Shesterkin to make a sprawling left pad save with 6:13 remaining in the period.
But with that shot by Motte, and a second that came a few seconds later, on the same shift, the Senators instantly took over and dominated the rest of the period. After being outshot 6-1 prior to Motte’s two shots, Ottawa pelted Shesterkin with rubber over the final six minutes. One shot, by Tkachuk, even squeezed through him and was headed across the goal line before Libor Hajek managed to sweep it away with 5:04 left in the period.
Vitali Kravtsov had given the Rangers the lead with his first goal of the season at 10:31 of the period. The goal came after Kravtsov’s shot hit Ottawa defenseman Travis Hamonic in the throat and bounced right back to Kravtsov, who skated around the fallen Hamonic and whipped a bad-angle wrist shot past Talbot.
But Ottawa carried the momentum from the end of the first period into the second, and they ended up tying it late in the period. At first, they’d appeared to tie it on a goal by Claude Giroux, who banged in the rebound of a Tkachuk shot at 11:14, but the Rangers challenged the play, alleging offside. Video replay agreed with the Rangers and the goal was disallowed. Less than a minute afterward, though, Jacob Trouba took a tripping penalty and Tim Stutzle fished out a rebound and put it in over the fallen Shesterkin to make it 1-1 at 12:16.
Then the action turned to fisticuffs, as Trouba and Tkachuk fought an entertaining heavyweight battle at center ice at 14:58, and then Barclay Goodrow fought Ottawa’s Austin Watson at 17:48.
