Rangers revisited: A shootout win extends winning streak to 8 games

Acrobat saves and a shootout goal by Dan Boyle means good things for the New York Rangers

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.

Saturday, November 14, 2015 the New York Rangers traveled to Ottawa riding a seven game winning streak.   It took a shootout, but they were able to extend their unbeaten streak to eight games (it ended at nine).  They haven’t come close in the five years since with their best being two six game winning streaks.

The shootout winning goal came from an unlikely source, defenseman Dan Boyle.  For some reason, Coach Alain Vigneault felt that Boyle was strong at the shootout although he was  11 for 40 in his career for a 27.5% success rate.  That’s 263rd all time in the NHL for players with ten or more attempts.  Hmm.

This was an unusual game with no even strength goals and it featured Chris Kreider’s fight with Ottawa’s Zack Smith.   Kreider took on Smith after he hit Derek Stepan, knocking him out of the game temporarily.  The Ranger forward was assessed an instigator penalty, five minutes for fighting and a 10 minute misconduct.  It was the fourth fight of Kreider’s four year NHL career.

It was the second time that season that the Rangers had gone to a shootout and it was their first win.

The game

Both teams exchanged first period power play goals. Kreider opened the scoring just 2:31 in to the period with  Milan Michalek in the penalty box on a holding penalty.  Kreider deflected Kevin Hayes shot from the slot for the 1-0 lead.

The Ottawa goal was Erik Karlsson at his peak.

The play was set up when the Rangers were on a shorthanded odd man rush and Derek Stepan passed behind Ryan McDonagh. To make matters worse, McDonagh fell and it was off to the races for the Senators.  Note who got the primary assist, a young center named Mika Zibanejad.

From that point it was a game of saves as Craig Anderson stopped 33 of 34 shots for Ottawa and Henrik Lundqvist stopped 22 of 23 shots.

We forget just how good Lundqvist was.  Watch this series of saves in the first period and note his concentration.  Spectacular.

Both teams had opportunities to win the game in overtime. Mike Hoffman hit two posts and Rick Nash also hit a post.  Mika Zibanejad had a wide open net, but shot the puck wide.

In the shootout, Bobby Ryan scored for Ottawa on their first shot.  After a miss by Rick Nash, Lundqvist stopped Kyle Turris and then Mats Zuccarello scored to tie.  Lundqvist then stymied his future teammate, Zibanejad and it was Dan Boyle’s turn to be the hero.

Here are full highlights from the game including the Kreider first period goal and the shootout.

If you were wondering about Rangers and the shootout, Zuccarello has a career 49% success rate while Artemi Panarin is the best among active players, successful on 60.9% (14-23).  That’s the second best rate all time behind  Petteri Nummelin of Minnesota who scored eight times on 10 shots.