Not the start Henrik Lundqvist and the New York Rangers were looking for on Thursday night.
To put it mildly.
The Rangers, already down 2-1 in their opening-round series to Pittsburgh, fell behind 3-0 in the first period of Game 4 thanks to tallies from Eric Fehr, Patric Hornqvist and Conor Sheary.
The goals against came early and often for Lundqvist.
He was beaten just 69 seconds into the contest by Fehr, then again six minutes later when Hornqvist connected on the power play -- Pittsburgh’s fifth PPG of the series.
At the 16:12 mark, Sheary made it 3-0, converting a short-side shot after stealing the puck from Kevin Klein in Pittsburgh’s defensive zone.
The Pens nearly made it 4-0 moments after the Sheary goal, but Evgeni Malkin’s would-be score was wiped out as Chris Kunitz was deemed to have interfered with Lundqvist.
But even with that disallowed goal, Pittsburgh still took major wind out of the Rangers’ sails in the opening 20 minutes -- to the point where the MSG faithful booed the Blueshirts off the ice to end the period.
UPDATE: After Malkin scored to make it 4-0 just four minutes into the second, Lundqvist was parked in favor of Antti Raanta.