What a comeback! A 5-2 win over the Capitals

The New York Rangers have gone into the third period trailing 10 times this season and lost every time.  The 11th time was the charm as the Blueshirts came charging back from an early 2-0 deficit to win convincingly,  5-2 over the Washington Capitals.

The future was clearly on display as the key goals were scored by Filip Chytil, Kappo Kakko and Adam Fox along with stellar goaltending by Igor Shesterkin.  Artemi Panarin didn’t hurt as he turned in a dominant performance.  It was one of the most stirring games of the season, even better then the 9-0 thrashing of the Philadelphia Flyers.

Just four and  half minutes into the game there was no one in Rangersland who would have predicted the final outcome.  The Capitals came out swarming, took the first nine shots and scored two quick goals.   The Blueshirts settled down and made it a game before exploding for four third period goals. Coach David Quinn said “I was proud of how the first period changed. because we got off to such a tough start, it’s not easy to turn the tide within a period.”

For some reason, the Rangers play the Capitals better than any other team in the East and have won four of the six games and it could easily have been all six.  After the game,  Quinn attributed that to the Rangers getting “up” for good teams. “We seem to, when we play the really good teams…we know that if we’re not on our A game, it could get ugly…for some reason we continue to play well against them. ”

As for Ranger fans, it’s games like this that drives them crazy.  When they play like this did in this game, they can compete with any team in the NHL, but it doesn’t happen enough.

Here’s a full recap of the game with all of the goals.

Now, with a win over the Capitals under their belt, they take on the Buffalo Sabres twice on the road followed by two crucial matchups with the Pittsburgh Penguins.  With only 21 games left, the playoffs will be a challenge, but all they can do is keep winning.

Notes on the game

Igor Shesterkin evened his record at 8-8, but his won-loss record belies his statistics.  He stopped 30 of 32 shots and easily made a half dozen excellent saves to keep the Rangers in this game.

He is now fifth in the league in Save Percentage (.925%) and eighth in Goals Against Average (2.32).   That Save Percentage is the best in the East Division.

Ryan Strome now has a nine game assist streak, one off Rod Gilbert’s franchise record for a forward.  He also had points in 10 straight games.

Adam Fox has an eight-game points streak and eight straight games with assists.  He is still seven behind Brian Leetch’s franchise record of 15 straight games with an assist.

Fox now has 30 points in 35 games, only the third Ranger defenseman to do it along with Leetch and Sergei Zubov. It’s also been 25 years since a Ranger defenseman had 20 points in a month. Of course, it was Leetch who did it five times along with Brad Park who did it once.

Adam Fox’s game winning goal was a fabulous rush off a great deflection by Ryan Lindgren of a clearing pass and and an excellent keep-in and pass from Panarin.

Kaapo Kakko scored the tying goal on feeds from Panarin and Strome.  After the game Kakko said “Just go to the net and they will find me” and that is exactly what they did.  His game is getting better and better. On Adam Fox’s winning goal, Kakko tied up defender Justin Schultz, allowing a lane for Fox to score.

There is no denying the importance of Filip Chytil’s breakaway goal in the first period that game the Rangers life and got them back into the game.

The play was all Chytil as he stole the puck and got the breakout to score.

This was the fifth three point game of the season for Artemi Panarin and he hit one crossbar.

The Capitals have now lost only two games of their last 14 and both have come to the Rangers.

This was only the second game in the last 10 that Alex Ovechkin didn’t score a goal and again, it was the Rangers who stopped him.

Tom Wilson went a little nuts at the end of the game, retaliating for a Brendan Smith cross check that sent T.J Oshie to the bench doubled over.

He took a minor penalty and was given a 10 minutes misconduct.  Props to Alexandar Georgiev who took a swipe at Wilson as he passed the bench, jawing with Rangers players .

The Rangers penalty kill was successful twice in three attempts including a six on four with the goalie pulled.  The power play was scoreless in two attempts. Both Ranger power plays were pretty ineffective.

David Quinn was able to roll four lines and the bottom six had some excellent shifts.  The only forward who played more than 20 minutes was Mika Zibanejad.

The Capitals dominated in the faceoff circle, winning 56% of the draws.  Strome was above .500, winning six of 11 faceoffs.

The Rangers have won four of six games against the Capitals. The final two games of the season series are in May at Madison Square Garden.

Pavel Buchnevich scored a shorthanded empty net goal in the game’s waning moments. It was the fifth shorthanded goal of the season for the Rangers, second most in the league. Buchnevich and Mika Zibanejad lead the team with two shorthanded goals on the season.