Rangers revisited: Hank steals one from the Capitals

In 2015, the New York Rangers were a powerhouse and they took on another Met Division top team

With no New York Rangers hockey until January, we will try to give all Ranger fans a taste of hockey by reliving the best moment on this date over the last five years.

Tuesday, November 3, 2015 was a glorious night full of promise.  The Rangers hosted the Washington Capitals, a meeting between two of the best teams in hockey.   The Blueshirts came away with a 5-2 win and moved into sole possession of first place in the Metropolitan Division.

If you want a quintessential Ranger win of the early 2010s, this was it.  Henrik Lundqvist made 32 saves, standing on his head while Braden Holtby only had to face 21 shots. Unfortunately, five of those 21 shots went in.

What was unusual was that five different Rangers scored,  Take a trip down memory lane in looking at who scored.  The goals came from Oscar Lindberg, Kevin Hayes, Kevin Klein, Derick Brassard and Jarret Stoll.

For Lindberg it was his sixth goal in 12 games, getting to the rebound of a Kevin Hayes shot after a shot from Dan Girardi and giving the Rangers a 1-0 lead.

He would score again in his next game, giving the rookie seven goals in 13 games and dreams of a Calder Trophy.  Unfortunately, Lindberg went on to score only six goals in his next 55 games.  He must have impressed someone as he was the player the Vegas Golden Knights took from the Blueshirts in the expansion draft after the next season.

Sophomore Kevin Hayes notched the second Ranger goal with just over two minutes left in the first period and restored the Rangers’ lead.

The Rangers’ fourth goal came from that goal scoring machine, Kevin Klein.  It originally looked like Rich Nash put it in, but Klein’s shot was deflected again by Johansson.   Klein got the puck after a steal by Mats Zuccarello in the offensive zone.

For Klein he was on his way to another big goal scoring season.  He had scored all of 17 goals in his first eight NHL seasons.  In 2013-14, he scored a career high nine goals and this season this was his third goal, on his way to scoring nine goals again.

Does anyone remember that Jarret Stoll was a Ranger?  He had a brief 29 game career in New York after signing as a free agent.  The goal he scored this night was his only goal as a Ranger. It was a slapshot from the faceoff circle that Holtby should have stopped.

It was a controversial signing as Stoll had been arrested that summer on misdemeanor drug charges in Las Vegas.  He was supposed to be a solid faceoff man and defensive center.  It didn’t work out and he was waived in December and claimed by the Minnesota Wild.

The two Washington goals came from Alex Ovechkin and Marcus Johansson .  For the Ovechkin goal it was a classic two on one with Ovi finishing the play.

In one of the more curious plays in the game, the Derick Brassard goal came on a play in which he didn’t get credited with a shot on goal.  The second period goal went in off Johansson when he tried to block a Brassard pass to Rick Nash.

The second period was the game in a nutshell.  The Rangers were outshot 14-3, but scored two goals to the Caps’ one.  Just before the Klein goal, coach Alain Vigneault actually called  a timeout as the Rangers were being totally outplayed.

The victory came in one of the Rangers’ best stretch of games in the 2010s.  They went 13 games without a loss in regulation, going 11-0-2 in that streak and after 18 games that season, had lost only two games in regulation.  Coming off a Presidents’ Trophy winning season, things looked great for the Blueshirts that Tuesday night in November.

We hope you enjoy these trips down memory lane.  Without any games to watch, it’s fun to see our heroes of the past at their best.   On this excursion down five years of memories, we can pretty much guarantee the Rangers will win them all.