Henrik Lundqvist steals a 4-2 win in Carolina

The New York Rangers stole a win against the Carolina Hurricanes as Henrik Lundqvist stood on his head with 45 saves in a 4-2 win.

If there is any doubt that Henrik Lundqvist is still an elite NHL goaltender,there are no more as he was spectacular in a road win against a tough Metropolitan Division rival. It was the New York Rangers version of the rope-a-dope as Lundqvist and the Blueshirts withstood a barrage of shots and counterpunched with timely goals. As good as Lundqvist was, the whole team put on a great display of team defense as they held off the Hurricanes who pushed hard in the third period.

This is the kind of game that drives advanced stats advocates nuts.  The Hurricanes’ advantage in possession was unbelievably one-sided, but the Rangers won in a game that they never trailed. Look at these numbers.The Hurricanes had 76 shot attempts to the Rangers’ 31.  In the first period along, they had a 36-10 advantage.  That works out to a Corsi percentage of 78.26%. Yet the Blueshirts skated off the ice with a 1-0 lead on an Artemi Panarin goal.

While the Rangers were on their heels most of the game, they had a formula that followed to a tee.  They allowed a lot of shots, relying on Lundqvist as the final line of defense.   Despite the 47-19 shot advantage, the Rangers actually had seven high danger scoring changes over the last two periods to eight for the Hurricanes.

There were some outstanding individual efforts as Pavel Buchnevich had a goal and an assist and scored a magnificent winning goal.  Brendan Lemieux was a physical presence and was rewarded with a power play goal.  Artemi Panarin chipped in with the first goal, a goal scorer’s goal.

Again, the Rangers won the special teams battle with the only power play goal of the game.  Despite the lopsided play, they only took two penalties, both in the first period and killed them both.

Considering that they were playing on short rest in the second contest of back to back games against a team seen as a Stanley Cup contender, this was a pretty special win for the Rangers.  They’ve now won two in a row and five out of their last seven.

The game

As described, in the first period the ice was tilted towards the Rangers end.  Lundqvist made save after save, and the Blueshirts had to kill two penalties.  The first, at 3:32, was an incredibly bad roughing call on Lias Andersson who was sandwiched by to Hurricanes and pushed back.  The second penalty was legit, a tripping call on Marc Staal.

The Hurricanes had 11 shot opportunities on the two power plays, though only five shots got through to Lundqvist.

With 28 seconds left in the first period and the Rangers barely hanging on, it was Artemi Panarin who snuck into the slot and put a Jesper Fast pass into the Canes goal for a 1-0 lead.

The goal was a result of excellent hard work by Panarin, Strome and Fast as each member of the line won puck battles.  I suppose the Hurricanes were tired from taking all of those shots.

David Quinn talked about the first period, “the first five minutes were okay, it was actually an even period, then we took those two penalties and the whole momentum just shifted and we were just hanging on for dear life.  To get out of the period 1-0 was unbelievable in a lot of ways.”

The second period was more evenly played and at the 14:32 mark, Dougie Hamilton deflected a Jacob Slavin shot past Lundqvist.  He had no chance on the shot as Hamilton continues to excel offensively.  He’s second among defenseman in scoring, only behind John Carlson of Washington.

With the score tied, the Rangers drew a penalty when Brett Pesce tripped Kaapo Kakko and the second power play unit went to work. 18 second into the man advantage, Brendan Lemieux planted himself in from of Canes goalie Petr Mrazek and deflected a Anthony DeAngelo shot from the blue line into the net.

It was a huge goal and was definitely demoralizing for the Hurricanes to give up two late goals in each of the first two periods.  Even so, the Canes kept pushing and almost scored as the period ended.

The third period, the expectation was that Carolina would come at the Rangers with a big push. Previously, the Canes had gone into the third period trailing in six games and won four of them, the most in the NHL.  Instead, it was Pavel Buchnevich whose individual effort paid off in a goal.  He stole the puck from Jake Gardiner and drove to the net, putting a backhander past Mrazek.

It looked like Chytil had scored, but it was Buchevich’s goal all the way.

The Hurricanes made it interesting with 4:02 left when a Sebastian Aho cross ice pass was deflected into the Rangers net by Lias Andersson, but the Cane pulled their goalie with two minutes left and Adam Fox sealed the deal with an empty net goal.

Both Kaapo Kakko and Chris Kreider had opportunities with the net empty, but Kakko shot the puck wide and Kreider held on to it too long and never got the shot off.

Quinn felt the team stood up well during the third period after the Buchnevich goal. “We get the goal early in the third and I think our  mindset changed , obviously we’re playing  a little more conservative and they had some good chances in the third still, but…listen, that’s a really good hockey team…I’ve watched a few of their games this year and they are as impressive a team as I’ve seen in the NHL.”

The Rangers should feel really good about this win. They played a classic road game and rope-a-doped their way to victory.