After the Rangers’ game four loss to the Devils at Madison Square Garden, head coach Gerard Gallant ripped the team’s effort on home ice, using the terms “lazy” and “not even close to good enough.”
Now, after Thursday’s game five blowout loss, Gallant took a much different tone despite a much more lopsided finish on the scoreboard in what was a 4-0 New Jersey victory to put the Blueshirts on the brink of elimination.
“I've got no problem with the effort tonight,” Gallant said. “They competed, they come in here, Jersey played a hell of a game. You gotta give them a lot of credit. They played their best game of the series I thought tonight.”
Gallant noted some tough breaks that didn’t go his team’s way, and at times, that was certainly apparent. Less than a minute into the game, a shot on goal by Ondrej Palat hit a stick in front, sending the puck on a high arch over the head of Igor Shesterkin before dropping into the back of the net. Later, a cross ice pass on the power play to Adam Fox to Artemi Panarin took a strange bounce and kicked up off the knee of Panarin, sending the Devils on a 2-on-1 the other way for an eventual shorthanded goal by Dawson Mercer, giving New Jersey a commanding 3-0 lead.
“Obviously, the shorthanded goal late there was tough to give up,” Gallant said. “But those are the breaks sometimes…we gotta be better, but I don’t feel anything close to the same as last game. The effort's there. We've been in this position before. Last year, twice we were down 3-2. See what we can do, go back home on Saturday, rally the troops and get it going.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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