As bad as the New York Rangers were on Thursday, they were good on Saturday. In fact, they were a completely different team. They got timely goals, outstanding goaltending and fought for every inch of the ice and it paid off with a dominant 5-0 win.
Perhaps the biggest reason for the win was a bad break for the Islanders. Semyon Varlamov was due to start the game after pitching an opening night shutout, but he took a Cal Clutterbuck shot to the shoulder/collarbone during warmups and went right to the lockerroom.It meant that it was the NHL debut for 25-year-old rookie Ilya Sorokin and the Rangers took advantage.
The Blueshirts also did what they absolutely needed to do. They got early saves from Alexandar Georgiev and they scored first. There were no dumb penalties early in the game and they held their own, despite splitting the shot advantage 10-10 in the first period.
Prior to the game, David Quinn shuffled the forward lines, putting Alexis Lafrenière on the right side of Ryan Strome and Artemi Panarin. Kaapo Kakko was moved to the third line with Filip Chytil and Phil Di Giuseppe who replaced the injured Kevin Rooney.
The biggest change was on defense. Quinn benched Tony DeAngelo for taking a bad unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Thursday, replacing him with Brendan Smith. He also paired Jacob Trouba with Ryan Lindgren, Adam Fox with Jack Johnson and K’Andre Miller worked with Smith.
Of all the changes, the defense moves were most effective. Trouba played magnificently as he and Lindgren formed a dynamic top defensive pair. Adam Fox played well and his skill allowed Jack Johnson to stick to defense . K’Andre Miller showed restored confidence and Brendan Smith did what he is paid to do, be physical and stick to defending. He did both and also contributed offensively, springing Artemi Panarin for a breakaway goal.
Pavel Buchnevich scored twice and is off to an excellent start. Panarin scored on his breakaway and added a power play tally in the third period. Kaapo Kakko scored a goal scorer’s goal to give the Rangers a 4-0 lead.
Finally, it was Alexandar Georgiev who saved the team in the first period, making some crucial stops and making it look easy. Aided by a couple crossbars in the third period, Georgiev notched his fifth career shutout.
After the game, David Quinn gave credit to the team leaders. “I’ve got to give a bunch of our leaders a ton of credit. Jacob Trouba stood tall tonight, played one of his best games as a Ranger, the stuff he did in between the last game and tonight went a long way in us putting us in the right mindset, Mika, Kreider, Bread…nobody was happy with what happened the other night…it’s all how you respond to that.”
Now, with this win under their belts, the challenge for the Rangers will be to keep it up against a tough Devils team on Tuesday and David Quinn has some more lineup decisions to make.