This was supposed to be a marquee matchup, a competitive affair between two teams that have amounted to more than the sum of their parts through the first two-plus months of the season.
The Canucks sure played like the No. 1 team in the Pacific Division.
The same can’t be said for the No. 1 team in the Metropolitan Division.
The Rangers were made to look silly at times Monday in a 6-3 loss to a high-octane Vancouver team, which leapfrogged the Blueshirts into second place in the NHL standings with the victory.
It was the Rangers’ eighth defeat of the season by three or more goals.
Vancouver was always going to be a defensive challenge for the Rangers as the NHL’s leader in goals entering the game, but the home team coughed the puck up too many times against a club that repeatedly made it pay.
Facing a 3-1 deficit for the second time in as many games, head coach Peter Laviolette began tinkering with his lines in the second period to play Artemi Panarin as much as possible.
It essentially cut the Rangers’ forward bench in half as Laviolette rode his top two units, which left rookie Brennan Othmann with a lone one-minute shift in the middle frame.
It paid off when Alexis Lafreniere intercepted the puck at the blue line, pulled up in the offensive zone and hit a driving Panarin for his 26th goal of the season at the 8:19 mark.
The Canucks, however, were just getting comfortable under the Garden spotlight.
Elias Pettersson first waited out K’Andre Miller’s sliding play before putting a shot on Igor Shesterkin, who made the initial save but could not regroup as the Vancouver forward finessed his own rebound around the Rangers’ goalie.
It was an impressive sequence, but Nils Hoglander somehow outdid it just over a minute later, when the Canucks’ fourth-line wing pulled off a ridiculous backward tuck and backhanded finish for the 5-2 lead.
Vincent Trocheck scored his second goal of the night early in the third period as the Rangers outshot the Canucks, 14-5, in the final frame.
An empty-net goal from Pettersson, however, sent Rangers fans for the exits.
The Rangers may have struck first on a power-play goal from Trocheck, who holstered his stick like the scoring sword it’s been this season at the 3:38 mark of the opening frame, but the Canucks pushed the pace during five-on-five play for a majority of the night.
As has become a trend for the Rangers, Vancouver answered 53 seconds later with a goal from former Blueshirt J.T. Miller.
Losing battle after battle for possession in the neutral zone, the Rangers allowed the Canucks to barge back into their zone before Nils Hoglander blasted a one-timer past Shesterkin at the 6:45 mark.
Brock Boeser later slipped behind the K’Andre Miller-Jacob Trouba pairing and finished on his backhand for the 3-1 lead.
Some boos followed the Rangers as they headed into the locker room for the first intermission. They grew even louder on their way in following the second period.
And it echoed around the arena after the final whistle as they trudged off the ice.