This wasn’t all Antti Raanta’s fault, far from it given the open looks he faced at times. Still, the Rangers need more from their backup goalie in this playoff race.
The Kings escaped Madison Square Garden with a 5-4 overtime win on Friday night after Anze Kopitar completed his hat trick with 29.7 seconds left in regulation.
The loss snapped a four-game winning streak for the Rangers (31-18-6).
Tanner Pearson scored the winner at 3:10 overtime, racing up the right boards with defenseman Dan Boyle far from the chase.
Kopitar had tied it with Peter Budaj (24 saves) off for an extra skater on a shot from the right that deflected in off defenseman Kevin Klein.
The Rangers still extended their home unbeaten streak to 7-0-2 and are 21-5-3 overall at the Garden.
Raanta, who allowed two goals on the first six shots, finished with 29 saves and still has not won since Nov. 15. He will see considerably more work down the stretch with six more sets of back-to-back games, including four in March.
Kevin Hayes made it 4-3 at 15:14 of the third period off a great set up by Mats Zuccarello for the Rangers’ first power play in six games. It was the Rangers’ lone man advantage after going 2-for-50 over their last 18 games.
Budaj, an emergency callup a day earlier from Ontario (AHL) with starter Jonathan Quick (lower body) out, was playing his first NHL game since Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final for the Canadiens against the Rangers.
Raanta had not started since a 5-2 loss at Washington on Jan. 17, which was his first start since suffering a head injury in the first period of a 5-2 loss at Minnesota on Dec. 17.
And that’s been it for the 26-year-old Finnish goalie in almost two months, except for a brief stint at the end of a 5-3 loss at Nashville on Dec. 28.
“Sometimes you can get that inside your head a little bit and starting thinking a little bit, you’re freaking out because you haven’t been play for three weeks,” Raanta said. “And then you start (thinking) of all those bad things that happen in the last game that you pretty much forget that you’re actually a pretty good goalie.”
Kopitar scored on the game’s first shot, beating Raanta over his glove from the left circle just 33 seconds in as Marc Staal challenged way too late.
That became 2-0 as ex-Ranger Marian Gaborik scored on the power play at 11:26 as Boyle was backing up. Gaborik left the game and was helped to the Kings’ dressing room at 16:29 of the first period, unable to put weight on his left leg after a collision with Dominic Moore at the Kings’ blue line.
Viktor Stalberg cut the lead to 2-1 at 13:00 as Hayes, at the left post, fed him at the crease.
Budaj was the one with the problems in the second period.
First, Derek Stepan tied the game with an unassisted goal from the slot through Budaj’s pads at 7:44 after stripping Tyler Toffoli of the puck. Then, Zuccarello’s backhander at the right post off Chris Kreider’s feed bounced off Budaj and Vincent Lecavalier before slowly rolling over the line to give the Rangers a 3-2 lead at 9:21 as Zuccarello tied his career high with his 19th goal.
But Kopitar’s second goal tied the game at 3 at 15:46 after Dustin Brown checked J.T. Miller off the puck along the boards and Milan Lucic fed Kopitar at the left post for the tap-in.