New York Rangers: A dramatic come from behind 4-3 shootout win over Minnesota

The game

The first period was all Minnesota.  They played like a desperate team and out chanced, out shot and out hit  the Blueshirts.   How sharp were they?  They won 14 of 17 faceoffs.

At the 9:49 mark, Ryan Donato got the Wild on the scoreboard with a slick backhand after he split the Ranger defense.  it wasn’t the finest moment for Jacob Trouba and Brady Skjei and the puck actually went in off Skjei’s foot.

Two minutes later, the Rangers answered right back and of course, it was Artemi Panarin who lasered the shot into the net.

It was a great passing play from Ryan Strome to Tony DeAngelo to Panarin.  The Russian had so much time he actually settled the puck down before sending it past goalie Alex Stalock.

Stalock looked very unsteady and whenever the puck went his way it was an adventure.  Several times it looked like the Rangers would score and it felt like they had no puck luck, especially when Zibanejad had a wide open net, only to hit Pavel Buchnevich who was in the crease.

The Wild took the lead again at 16:43 on a Jonas Brodin slapshot.  Minnesota had a long shift in the Ranger zone and the Blueshirts were doing a good job keeping them on the perimeter until Jordan Greenway fed Brodin for the shot.

The Rangers were lucky to escape the first period trailing by a goal considering the clear advantage held by the Wild.

The second period was a completely different story.  The Rangers attacked well, but were stymied by six blocked shots in the first 11 minutes when they held a 6-2  advantage in shots on goal. They dodged a bullet when it appeared that the Wild scored.  David Quinn challenged on goalie intereference as it appeared that Ryan Hartman had prevented Georgiev from making the save.  The Rangers won the challenge and they remained down only one goal.

All that good will disappeared when Jordan Greenway tipped a Brodin shot from the point as Brady Skjei tried to tie him up.   So, they were down 3-1 despite having outplayed the Wild and missing numerous opportunities.

It was more of the same in the third period as the Rangers pushed hard, but couldn’t put one past Stalock.  There was a thrilling moment when Greenway broke in all along and Georgiev rushed to play the puck.

Georgiev got enough of the puck and Greenway to knock him off balance and the Rangers regained possession.

It looked very grim when Zibanejad was called for interference at 9:15 on what looked like a perfectly played defensive move against Matt Dumba.

36 seconds after they killed the penalty a puck ricocheted off a Wild player in a scrum in front of the net and went in, getting the Rangers within in a goal with 8:09 left in the game.

Buchnevich just spun around and threw a shot at the net.  It was going to miss the net by two feet, but hit first Jonas Brodin and then Mikko Koivu and slipped past Stalock.  It was finally some puck luck for the Rangers in a very frustrating game.

Now, down 3-2, the Rangers threw everything they had at the Wild in an effort to tie, but it wasn’t until they pulled Georgiev that they were able to get the equalizer off a deflection by Zibanejad.

If you didn’t see it, look at this goal.  The pass to Zibanejad was from Panarin and was simply amazing.  He accepted a pass from Ryan Strome and instead of shooting it, he makes a perfect pass to Zibanejad who puts the deflection past the Wild goalie.  Sublime.

The overtime period was thrilling with ZIbanejad just missing the winning goal and Stalock sopping a point blank shot from a breaking Jacob Trouba.  That glove save by Stalock was his best of the game.

In the shootout, Zibanejad scored and Ryan Donato missed when he lost control of the puck.  Panarin then scored on a slooooow rush.  He basically stopped in front of Stalock while stickhandling and when the goalie went down he put it in over him.  The referees reviewed the goal, but it stood and when Zach Parise hit the crossbar, the game was over. Here are all of the shootout attempts:

To clarify, the rule on a shootout is the puck has to remain in constant motion towards the goal line and in control of the offensive player until he shoots and forward motion by the player himself is not necessary.  Panarin never lost control.