FINAL SCORE: New York Rangers-5 Minnesota Wild-4
FIRST PERIOD: The Rangers came into the first period looking to get back on a winning track after losing Saturday night’s match-up to the Montreal Canadiens. The Wild came into the period looking to extend their winning streak to three games after beating the Arizona Coyotes 2-0 and the Tampa Bay Lightning 7-2. The game started with a very fast pace with both teams going back and forth for shots at the very beginning. The wild came into this game 0-20 on the power-play and they got their first man-advantage chance of the night when Marc Staal took a holding penalty at 12:15 in the period. The Rangers killed that off, along with the penalty that Kevin Klein took to save a goal five minutes later. At 19:44 in the period, Chris Kreider crushed Jonas Brodin from behind on an unnecessary hit from behind and was immediately assessed a boarding major (served by Ryan Malone) and a game misconduct; I wouldn’t be surprised if Kreider had a phone call coming up with the NHL player department of player safety. The period ended and the shot count was 13-5 in favor of the Wild, but Henrik Lundqvist and Darcy Kuemper stood tall to the task.
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SECOND PERIOD: The Rangers spent the first five minutes of this period killing off Kreider’s penalty. After that Nate Prosser tipped a puck in past Lundqvist to give the Wild a 1-0 lead; 55 seconds later Matt Cooke of all peopled tipped another puck in past Lundqvist to give the Wild a quick 2-0 lead. When all that was said and done John Moore took a penalty that saw him immediately removed from the game, again an unnecessary hit that should get him a phone call from the NHL. Ryan Malone served Moore’s penalty and then the Rangers thought they were back in the game. The Wild seemed to dominate this period from start to finish and Jason Pominville tried to put the nail in the Rangers coffin by scoring the Wild’s third goal of the game with less than five minutes left in the period. This goal wasn’t exactly Lundqvist’s shining moment of the game and I’m sure he wanted this one back. The Rangers got their own power-play chance when Nino Niederreiter took a penalty but nothing came of it. The period came to an end and the Rangers were out-shot 24-8, 11-3 in the second period.
THIRD PERIOD: This period was fun, but most importantly the Rangers didn’t take any penalties this period. Just under three minutes in Kevin Klein rocketed a shot from the blue line that made it’s way past Kuemper to put the Rangers on the board. Two minutes later Rick Nash scored his NINTH goal of the season on a backhand rebound shot to put the Rangers within one goal of the Wild. However, Jason Zucker of the wild struck back 50 seconds later to get Minnesota it’s two goal lead back. Two and a half minutes later, Carl Hagelin ripped a shot off the crossbar and Derick Brassard backhanded it into the net which put the Rangers back within one; this was the first time this season the Wild gave up more than two goals in a game. The Rangers were back in the game and the crowd at Madison Square Garden came alive. With less than FOUR minutes remaining Anthony Duclair received a beautiful stretch pass from Matt Hunwick and raced into the zone and put his first career goal past Kuemper to tie the game at four. Half a minute later Mats Zuccarello landed in front of the net and tapped a pass from Brassard past Kuemper to give the Rangers their first lead of the game; comeback complete. The Rangers would go on to win this game 5-4, they out-shot the Wild 12-6 in this period, but were out-shot 30-20 for this game.
Three Stars:
1) Rick Nash
2) Derick Brassard
3) Anthony Duclair