New York Rangers steal their second win in a row vs. the St. Louis Blues 2-1

Notes on the game

The Rangers were outshot 40-23 for the game, but were outshot 33-9 over the last two periods.

The Rangers had 23 blocked shots to go with the 40 Blues shots that got through.

This game was a possession nightmare for New York. The Blues Corsi percentage was almost 70%.

The Blues had 79 shot attempts compared to the Rangers’ 43.   St . Louis had 26 shot attempts on their four power plays.

Zuccarello’s goal was his first in 13 games.

Kevin Hayes point-scoring streak ended.  Chris Kreider has points in five straight.

This was Kevin Shattenkirk’s first game back after suffering a shoulder separation and missing seven games.  It was his first game in St. Louis as a visiting player and he got an assist on the winning goal.

The Rangers have won two in a row for the first time since before Thanksgiving. It’s the first time they’ve won two in a row on the road since the first week of November.

After being unable to win in regulation in their first 16 road games, they now have won twice in a row.

This was the eighth time that Henrik Lundvist has faced 40 goals in a game this season.  He is 4-2-2 in those games.

Special teams were a clear win for New York.  They were one for three on the PP and killed all four Blues man advantages.

With Nieves scoring that means the third and fourth lines have scored seven goals in nine games. It’s good to see some balanced scoring, but more is needed.  Howden in particular is having no puck luck at all.  The good news is that he keeps shooting, leading the team with five shots.

Speaking of Howden, it is impressive how David Quinn is leaning on him for key faceoffs.  He took 22 draws and won half of them.  He was out for the key draws in the last two minutes of the game.

Quinn was clearly relieved by the win, but was critical of their effort: “You’ve got to find a way to get two points, there are a whole bunch of ways to do it and we got it because we have a great goalie.  We played really well for 25 minutes, we get up 2-1 and we acted like it was 9-1…we’re certainly not thrilled the way we played the last 35 minutes.”  Watch the full interview here:

There was a bizarre sequence at the end of the second period that resulted in a Ranger penalty.   The Blues had the Rangers penned in their zone for about two minutes after Ryan Strome broke his stick. Somehow, Tony DeAngelo lost his stick too and Strome picked it up.  He must not have realized that DeAngelo’s stick was broken as well and Strome was called for playing with an illegal stick.

Jake Allen had a pretty good game.  Coming into the game, of all goalies who have appeared in 25 games, he had the second highest GAA (3.10) and second worst save  percentage (.900) in the league. Compare that to Lundqvist’s 2.87 and .913.

Cody McLeod led the Rangers with three hits and couldn’t handle the puck on a two on one break. He was originally credited with the goal scored by Boo Nieves.

Something needs to be done about the goalie masks straps.  Whenever a puck hits a mask, a strap comes loose and play has to be stopped. It happened to Lundqvist and Allen in the second period.

The next game is Wednesday night at home versus Pittsburgh and will be on NBC Sports Network.