New York Rangers show some fight and other takeaways from Montreal

It was all going so wrong for the New York Rangers and then, in the blink of an eye, they flipped the script and stunned the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night.

With the harsh but true words from Head Coach David Quinn still ringing in their ears from the Ottawa Senators debacle the night before, the New York Rangers still let themselves be bullied by Montreal early on.

They fell behind early to a Max Domi goal and then three unanswered goals from Artturi Lehkonen, Domi again and Shea Weber had the Blueshirts fanbase fearing the worst.

It brought back flashbacks from that horror show in Tampa last week, and the Rangers were facing two blowout losses on the road on consecutive nights.

However, and almost as if they had just remembered their coach’s fierce words from the night before, the Blueshirts clicked into gear and began their resurgence.

Filip Chytil got the comeback rolling with a wicked one-timer from another sublime dish from Artemi Panarin, before Pavel Buchnevich and Brendan Lemieux made it a contest heading into the third period.

There was a slight fear that the Canadiens had halted that momentum when Lehkonen potted his second goal of the night, but these young Rangers don’t lack in heart or fight and they rallied again after that setback.

Panarin has been an absolute success since his blockbuster arrival in free agency, and he continued his recent hot streak by recording his 12th goal of the year, thanks in large part to a beautiful no-look pass from Chris Kreider.

That set the stage for Lemieux to build on his heroic night (more on him shortly) with another tuck, and Jacob Trouba completed a stunning and unlikely comeback by scoring the go-ahead goal at 12:10 in the third period.

It was a hell of an effort from the New York Rangers who displayed an abundance of character to fight back against what looks be a playoff team, and we had some takeaways from what could be a season defining win…