If the New York Rangers played like this every game, we would be calculating how many points out of first place they are instead of trying to figure out what it will take to make the playoffs. After an awful loss to Boston on Thursday night, they came out and played one of their most complete games of the season and dismantled the Bruins, 4-0.
Almost everything worked for the Blueshirts. They got an early goal from K’Andre Miller. Their penalty kill was impeccable. Their power play didn’t score, but didn’t give up a shorthanded goal. They stifled the Boston offense, allowing only 18 shots on goal, the fewest this season. They stopped the Bergeron line and frustrated Brad Marchand into taking silly penalties. They solved their nemesis, Jaroslav Halak. Mika Zibanejad played as good a game as he has all season with two assists. Artemi Panarin returned and didn’t miss a beat. And they got a shutout from their third string goalie.
The was as much of a total team effort as in any game this season. There were no bad performances, nobody took the day off. It started with the first shift of the game and continued to the last.
As expected, the post game focus was on that team effort. Ryan Strome said “we came to play…I think up and down the lineup, everyone contributed.” David Quinn talked about how proud he was of the effort saying, “(I’m) Just proud of our guys, we’ve been in this situation before this year, when it looks like our season is slipping away and the way we play we did today from start to finish, never took our foot off the pedal.”
Leave it to that realist, Mika Zibanejad to lay a dose of reality on the proceedings when asked about responding to adversity. “I think we’ve been doing a good job responding (to bad losses) , but we’ve got to find a way to string a couple of these games together. the way we skated, the way we played, really the way we played together. We need to find a way to do that more often. ”
And that is this season in a nutshell. The Rangers came back from an awful opening night loss to shut out the Islanders in he next game. Then they lost to the Devils. They stopped a four game losing streak wth a stirring overtime win in Buffalo, then promptly blew a lead and lost in OT to Pittsburgh. They came back from a loss against the Flyers to dominate the Bruins 6-2 and were then wiped out 4-1 by Boston.
The Rangers now have two home games against the Flyers, a team that has lost three of four going into Saturday’s match against the Capitals. The Flyers are a team the Rangers have to pass in the standings. Can anyone guess which Ranger team will show up at the Garden on Monday night?
Dictionary.com just added another definition for the word “inconsistent.” The new definition is New York Rangers.
Here’s an extended video recap of the game: