The New York Rangers believe they did a lot of good things against the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden. Unfortunately for the Blueshirts and the sellout crowd of 18,006 on “Fan Favorites Night,” winning wasn’t one of them.
The Rangers spent the night chasing the game and never did catch up in a 5-2 loss that left them at 20-19-6, four points behind the Sabres for the second wild-card berth in the Eastern Conference. The Rangers lost even though they out-shot the Sabres 32-21, out-attempted them 64-48, out-hit them 32-16, were 32-19 in the face-off circle, and had a 56.