Ryan Strome's overturned goal, from the ESPN broadcast

The Rangers lost to the Hurricanes 3-1 on Thursday night in Raleigh, falling into a 3-2 hole as this second-round series heads back to Madison Square Garden for Game 6 on Saturday night.

It looked like they had taken a 2-1 lead in the 2nd period when this Ryan Strome goal was reviewed and overturned:

Annoying, but the correct call. It was hard to tell in real time because Andrew Copp is partially off the screen and we can only see his torso, but that goal was nixed, Frank Vatrano was penalized for hooking a short time later, and then Teuvo Teravainen scored what ended up being the game winner.

Speaking of annoying, the Rangers are now 0-for-5 in reviews this entire postseason, which is incredible if you think about it. Zero-for-five! Four replays against the Penguins and one against the Canes, but a donut to show for it. They haven’t won a single review, though if we’re being honest with ourselves, the only one that was truly egregious was the Kakko/Chytil goaltender interference against Pittsburgh. The Guentzel high stick sequence was incredibly tight and the refs stuck with the call on the ice:

Going back to the Kakko/Chytil thing, there’s a separate story to be told about the NHL’s protection of goaltenders, which creates goofy situations like Game 1 in Pittsburgh. There’s also the issue of sticking to the call on the ice unless there’s clear video evidence to overturn the call, which is something the NFL has done a better job of, outlier frustrations aside. The NHL seems to be all over the place with this.

For what it’s worth, this is the explanation given by the NHL Situation Room up in Toronto:

“Video review determined New York’s Kaapo Kakko impaired Casey DeSmith’s ability to play his position in the crease prior to Filip Chytil’s goal. The decision was made in accordance with Rule 69.1 which states, in part, ‘Goals should be disallowed only if: (1) an attacking player, either by his positioning or by contact, impairs the goalkeeper’s ability to move freely within his crease or defend his goal.”

I guess the refs didn’t think there was enough of an attempt to avoid DeSmith, but not sure what Kakko is supposed to do there.

Anyway, not to stir up bad recent memories, but it’s wild how much has gone against the Rangers in these playoffs. Bad luck, bad breaks, and now they’re facing elimination again.