New York Rangers: A dramatic come from behind 4-3 shootout win over Minnesota
By Steve Paulus
The New York Rangers scored two third period goals to force overtime and won behind Alexandar Georgiev in a shootout. It was a dramatic victory and the kind of win that’s characteristic of a playoff team.
One of the issues for the New York Rangers this season is that they haven’t been able to steal points by going to overtime. The NHL is happy to dole out points even if you lose, but the Blueshirts have not taken advantage of that. They did tonight.
When Jordan Greenway scored with two minutes left in the second period to make the score 3-1, it looked like another disappointing night for the Blueshirts. To make matters worse, they had thoroughly outplayed the Wild in the second period, but Minnesota scored the only goal.
The Rangers had gone into the third period trailing 17 times this season and they had come back to win only once. Even an optimist had to believe that a comeback was unlikely, especially after Mike Zibanejad took a soft interference penalty at the 9:15 mark of the third period.
The penalty killers did their work and they continued to push getting within a goal and then Zibanejad scored with 1:06 remaining and Georgiev on the bench. After a thrilling scoreless overtime period, the Blueshirts won the game in the shootout.
This was only the eighth overtime game this season for the Rangers and their first shootout win in three tries. The two points they earned kept them on pace with the Philadelphia Flyers who sit in the last wild card spot, nine points ahead.
It was a clutch win especially for Alexandar Georgiev who started in place of an injured Igor Shesterkin. It was also a game in which the brightest stars led the way as Artemi Panarin and Zibanejad scored in regulation and the shootout. It gives the Rangers their second three game winning streak of the season and a real shot at four in a row when they take on a slumping Columbus team Friday.