Penguins hand Rangers 1-0 loss

This marked the first time in New York’ s 82 seasons that the franchise absorbed
back-to-back 1-0 defeats.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — All the New York Rangers have to show for those many zeros in the big salaries they gave to Chris Drury and Scott Gomez during the offseason are a lot more zeros on the scoreboard.

Marc-Andre Fleury turned aside 36 shots in another strong start Tuesday night and the Pittsburgh Penguins won their third in a row by handing the Rangers their second successive 1-0 loss.

It marked the first time in the 82 seasons of the Original Six franchise that the Rangers absorbed back-to-back 1-0 defeats, according to Elias Sports Bureau. They lost 1-0 in a shootout Saturday to Boston.

“It’s going to come. You’ve got to believe,” said Jaromir Jagr, off to the worst start of his 17-season career with only one goal in eight games. “There’s nothing else to do; you can’t do anything else.”

Evgeni Malkin scored on a power play early in the second period to ruin a good night by Henrik Lundqvist, who made a succession of excellent saves while stopping 21 shots. The biggest save came on Jordan Staal’s penalty shot less than a minute after Malkin scored.

The Rangers haven’t scored so few goals in their first eight games since they had nine in 1950, when they were shut out for three in a row. No matter, Fleury said he never relaxed.

“They’ve got so many skilled players, you never know what’s coming on the next shot,” Fleury said. “You’ve always got to stay ready.”

New York picked an inopportune time to go against Fleury, who shook off an up-and-down start to make 30 saves in a 2-1 victory over the Washington Capitals on Saturday. Fleury has stopped 66 of 67 shots since a 5-4 loss to New Jersey last Wednesday.

“You saw it Saturday night, you saw it tonight, he was the best player on our team,” Whitney said of Fleury, who allowed 18 goals in his first five games. “No one lost faith in him and he worked as hard as he could in practice. We’re all real pumped for him.”

Callahan drew a costly tripping penalty with 1.4 seconds left in the first period. The Penguins converted with 44 seconds gone in the second when Ryan Whitney slid the puck across the crease and it deflected off the heel of Malkin’s stick and past Lundqvist inside the near post.

Sidney Crosby got the second assist for his 10th point.