The New York Rangers continue to find new ways to lose hockey games.

Although the Rangers had a three-goal lead at one point, they suffered a bitter 5-4 overtime defeat against the Dallas Stars on Tuesday evening.

The Rangers scored three quick goals in the first period and took a commanding 3-0 lead. Two of the goals came from Alexis Lafrenière, who hadn’t scored since December 8th when he finally regained his confidence.

However, despite these three quick goals, the Rangers’ defensive problems were widespread and eventually caught up.

By the middle of the second period, New York’s three-goal cushion had completely evaporated and the Stars tied the game at 3-3.

To make matters worse, Filip Chytil suffered a mysterious upper body injury that forced him to abandon the game after 40 minutes.

Peter Laviolette confirmed that Chytil is being evaluated.

In the third period, the Rangers pushed back and started playing their best hockey. As a unit, they fought hard and almost seemed like a completely different team.

Vincent Trocheck’s power play goal gave the Rangers the lead late in the third period. The fans at Madison Square Garden were in a frenzy and everything finally seemed right in New York until it wasn’t.

The Rangers blew another lead in the final stages of the period and ultimately lost in overtime, making for a devastating night for the Blueshirts.

No matter how well the Rangers played in parts of the game, snuffing a lead of that magnitude on home ice is inexcusable.

“You come out of the gates, you’re up 3-0 at home and you don’t win the hockey game. You did enough things wrong defensively to not be happy with that,” Laviolette said.

Once again, the Rangers simply allowed too many odd-man rushes, which ended up costing them dearly.

“There are five guys who might be a little bit off,” Adam Fox said. “Lack of communication is a big problem there. Of course we want to create chances, but at the same time we don’t want it to go the other way.”

The Rangers had a golden opportunity to win in style and provide much-needed momentum, but instead came away even more demoralized than before.

The Rangers will be back in action on Thursday night against the New Jersey Devils.