This was a game that the New York Rangers were supposed to win and they did exactly that. It wasn’t a dominant performance, but they held on for the victory over a team that is falling apart at the seams. The team should be satisfied with the result, but they should be overly excited about how they got there.
Rangers coach David Quinn was definitely not excited about it. “I thought we were sluggish…we didn’t look sharp for the most part…going into the third period, we just managed the game, some nights you’re not going to have it and you’ve got to find a way to win and we did that tonight.”
He admitted that the second period was their worst, even though they came out of it with a 3-2 lead. “The end of the second really got a little squirrelly and got away from us, we were lucky to get out of it up 3-2.”
He did admit that after playing an opponent like Boston, inevitably there is a letdown, pointing to the bad loss to the Devils after the last time they played Boston. He said that they found a way to win tonight and that is an improvement.
This was a game that Igor Shesterkin really made a difference. He didn’t steal the win, but he definitely prevented the Sabres from stealing it. He even had a chance to score a goal, but his shot was blocked in center ice.
Shesty was gunning for that empty net pic.twitter.com/XxZYAVG9wJ
— Rangers on MSG (@RangersMSGN) March 3, 2021
After the game, Coach David Quinn made it clear that he is not a fan of Shesterkin’s goal scoring attempts. “I liked that it go over the blue line, that’s what I liked. If he scores one eventually, good for him, but we’re more concerned about the two points than him scoring a goal…I don’t think he was reckless, he had time.”
The game started off with three goals in 2:36 and it looked like it was going to be pond hockey, but the Rangers settled down and there were only two goals scored in the remaining 57:24 minutes.
The dominant Ranger line in the first period was the line of Mika Zibanejad, Pavel Buchnevich and Alexis Lafrenière with the latter two scoring the first two Ranger goals. Zibanejad got off to a great start,but tailed off the in the last two periods. Buchnevich was on fire and came very close to getting the hat trick.
Buchnevich reflected on the win saying “It’s always good to score first…here we scored early and played our game which is easy for us and we took two points.” He also said that the line is talking a lot and trying new things, “We talk a lot now, during practices and during the games. Mika sees something and Laffy gives new ideas…hope we can keep producing offense for the team.”
Finding a way to win has become a mantra for this team. On a night when they were admittedly not at their best, they found a way to win.