New York Rangers Get Nashty In Overtime

After a disappointing ending to Thursday’s game in Tampa, the New York Rangers looked to bounce back strong against the Florida Panthers.

Opening up the scoring for the Rangers in the first period was a player that had been missing. Rick Nash was finally found in front of Panthers’ goalie Roberto Loungo at 11:08. This has been a long time coming, as this was Nash’s third goal of the season.

The sad thing about Nash is that every Rangers fan was hoping, and to some degree expecting, there to be another onslaught of goals during the season. That has not been the case, especially thinking that the first goal of Nash’s year was an empty netter that was given to him.

Henrik Lundqvist was lights out in the first period, stopping everything that came in his way. It seemed that nothing was getting by him.

New York Rangers

Lundqvist and the Rangers had the lead 1-0 at the end of the first, and looked to build off a strong period in the second.

That did not happen.

The Panthers came out hungry and scored a goal at 6:46 from Nick Bjugstad. Aside from that messy first goal, the Rangers looked decent. Chipping away at the Panthers, the Rangers finally broke through again.

It should be noted that Lundqvist did seem to be hurting, he took a shot to his right side and favored his right leg. Flexing it often, Lundqvist seemed to be sore off a shot from the point. He did not leave the ice and had suffered no injury on the play.

Nash scored his fourth of the season at 13:22, and the Blueshirts regained the lead. It would stay this way until a turnover in the defensive zone cost a goal at the end of the period.

At 17:57, Brandon Pirri scored a powerplay goal for Florida and tied the game at two a piece.

The second period ended all knotted up at two. The Rangers assistant head coach Ulf Samuelson told John Gianone, “That was not a good period for us. … We have to find a way to raise our level and come out with two points.”

Mats Zuccarello did just that. At 10:16 of the third period, Zuccarello recaptured the lead for the boys in blue and netted his 10th of the season.

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Not long after that was Viktor Stalberg making it 4-2 for the Rangers at 12:14. It seems that Samuelson’s speech to the Rangers players really resonated with the players.

It looked good for the visiting team, but that came to an end. At 17:32 and 18:11 of the third, Aleksander Barkov and Jaromir Jagr scored to tie the game. Henrik Lundqvist came up big stopping Reilly Smith on a penalty shot as Smith had the game winning goal on his stick.

This game went into overtime, and Panther’s Rocco Grimaldi took a penalty, resulting in a 4 on 3 for the Rangers.

Shortly after, Nash completed the hat trick and netted his fifth of the season in a 5-4 OT victory.

OT winner to complete the

The Rangers came back strong after the loss to Tampa and came out ready. The Blueshirts look to make it two straight against Nashville on Monday night. They might not have been perfect, considering they went into OT and gave up the lead on several occasions, but they did do okay. The Blueshirts did get the two points that Samuelson talked about, and the Rangers are now 15-3-2 on the season.