Rangers revisited: Kakko’s big night

Kaapo Kakko showed the New York Rangers a glimpse of his promise in an OT win over the Penguins

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.

November 12th has been very, very good to the New York Rangers.  The last time they lost on that date was in 2013, a 3-2 loss to the Devils.  Since then they beat the Blues 6-3, Flames 4-1 and Canucks 2-1, but the most memorable win of the last five years was on this date last season, a 3-2 overtime win over the Penguins on national television.

Tuesday, November 12, the hated Pittsburgh Penguins came to Madison Square Garden boasting a 10-5-2 record, but without Sidney Crosby, out with a back injury.   The Rangers were one game over .500 at 7-6-2, but riding a streak when they had only one regulation loss in six games.

If there was one game that last season that displayed the promise of this Rangers team, it was this one.  Two goals by Kaapo Kakko.  One goal and a fantastic assist by Adam Fox.  30 saves by Alexandar Georgiev.  Assists for Filip Chytil, Pavel Buchnevich, Brendan Lemieux, Tony DeAngelo and Fox.  The only player over 24 years old who dented the scoresheet was 28 year old Artemi Panarin.

It was Kakko’s first multi-goal game. It was the first time in franchise history that an 18 year old had scored two goals in a game.  It was Kakko’s first game winning goal and he had five goals in seven games.   Things were looking up for the vaunted rookie.

Unfortunately, Kakko would go on to score only two goals in his next 48 games.

Adam Fox’s goal extended his point streak to five games, the longest of his season.   Speaking of streaks, Panarin’s assist gave him a nine game point scoring streakm, the longest of his career. He would score in the net three games for a 12 game streak.   He would exceed that with a 13 game point scoring streak later in the season.

As for the Rangers, any good will evaporated two nights later when they were blitzed 9-3 in Tampa.

The game

The Rangers jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period, taking the lead when Kakko scored his first goal on a breakaway.

It was a great outlet pass from Brendan Lemieux to Kakko who beat both Penguin defenders, putting the backhand past Matt Murray.

With only 11 seconds left in the period, Adam Fox scored on a beautiful pass from Artemi Panarin.

With time winding down the Rangers penetrated the Penguins zone and Panarin made a spectacular cross ice pass to Adam Fox who had joined the rush.

The Penguins came back with two goals of their own to knot the score at 2-2.  It didn’t take them long as Justin Schultz scored just 1:13 into the period.

It was classic Ranger defense, with all five Blueshirts running around the defensive zone and allowing Schultz to get free for a wide open shot that he put over Georgiev’s shoulder.  All five Rangers were focused on Evgeni Malkin and overloaded his side of the ice, allowing Schultz to go unchecked.

Jared McCann scored a power play goal at 12:33 for the tie after Adam Fox went off for hooking Bryan Rust.

It was a broken play with McCann getting to a loose puck and putting it home.  The Rangers had killed two first period penalties and the Penguins were on an 0-28 streak on the power play when McCann scored.   Pittsburgh was dominant, outshooting the Rangers 11-7.

Despite two third period Pittsburgh penalties, the Penguins outshot the Rangers 12-8 and regulation time ended with the score tied 3-3.

OT didn’t start well for the Rangers as the Penguins controlled the puck, taking three shots and keeping Panarin, Kreider and DeAngelo on the ice.   The Rangers were finally able to get a change after an errant Penguins pass.  That’s when Adam Fox took over.  Watch this play, it’s something special.

After Malkin’s shot missed the net, Buchnevich shuffled the puck to Kakko who passed to Fox for a give and go, scoring the winning goal at 2:24 of overtime.  It was a fabulous play by Fox who penetrated the zone, cut to the middle and then instead of shooting, passed to Kakko who tipped it home.

This game was one of the high points of the season. They played without Mika Zibanejad who missed his seventh straight game, but that was offset by the Penguins injury list that included Crosby, Patric Hornqvist and Kris Letang.

As for Kakko, although he endured a lengthy goal scoring slump, he did get his second two goal game of the season in a win over Dallas in the second to last game of the pandemic-shortened season.