The New York Rangers played their best defensive game of the season and they got contributions from the top scorers on the team and that was the recipe for a 4-1 afternoon win over the Washington Capitals. It was a complete effort with solid team defense, a power play goal and another stellar penalty kill along with excellent goaltending. It’s a two game winning streak and now the Rangers have three days off in a row for the last time this season.
What was impressive today was how the entire team played as a cohesive defensive unit. They were outstanding at breaking up passes and keeping the Capitals on the perimeter the entire game. They held the Capitals to 27 shots, but they had only 21 scoring chances at even strength and only four high danger scoring chances the entire game 5v5. That’s defense.
There were monkeys flying off players backs in this game as Alexis Lafrenière scored his second NHL goal in the second period and Mika Zibanejad added a shorthanded empty netter as time expired.
MIKA ZIBANEJAD SCORES ON THE EMPTY NET!
— Rangers on MSG (@RangersMSGN) February 20, 2021
Buchnevich pulls the monkey off his back too 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/wywPt73Kbi
For Zibanejad it was only his second goal of the season and his first in 13 games.
The Rangers did everything they had to do to win. They scored the first goal of the game on the power play and they didn’t let a late second period goal by Washington get them down.
For David Quinn, it was not a surprise. He has maintained all along that the team has been playing well, but were just not scoring. He said that he thought that they played better in the loss to the Devils than they did in the win against the Flyers.
When it comes to team defense, Quin said “We’ve just come so far, so far this season from a defensive standpoint, a structural standpoint…our first two years here it was a fire drill so many times in our own end. It’s just a much more structured, calm look about us from a defensive standpoint. It gives you a chance.”
One big change was putting together the Panarin-Zibanejad-Lafrenière line. That was partially due to the fact that Kaapo Kakko was a late scratch due to the COVD protocol. The line scored one goal and played well together. Quinn said that it was something he had been contemplating, but had not done because of the balance of the other lines. Quinn added, “Maybe I should have done it sooner…I liked the balance and the look of our lines today.”
Panarin spoke about the new line “We felt great today, had many chances and obviously it was great to see Alexis score.”
Quinn was almost bemused talking about the reaction to the bad loss to New Jersey. If you take a step back and look at this season you will see that he has a point. The Rangers have played 11 one goal games out of 16 and they have lost seven of them (4-4-3). They’ve gotten only 11 points out of a possible 22 points in those games. If they had improved that record to 5-2-4 by winning one of those games and getting one more game to overtime, they would be one point out of a playoff spot.
The Rangers take on the Flyers on the road on Wednesday then have two home games against Boston. That’s three tough games and they need to keep this up.