Rangers find a way to win over the Sabres 3-1, bring on the Isles

Notes on the game

The Rangers finished with 41 shots on goal, their third highest total this season.  Four of their five games with the most shots came at the expense of the Buffalo Sabres.

The Rangers finished their season series with Buffalo with a 6-1-1 record, They took 13 of a possible 16 points from Buffalo, their best record in the division so far.

This was the lowest scoring game of the eight  between the teams and it was the first time either team was  held to only one goal.

Brendan Smith played what David Quinn called his “best game of the year” and got the Rangers on the scoreboard first in the second period.  He played a spirited game and just as important as his goal was the penalty he drew in the third period that led to a two man advantage and an important insurance goal.

Ryan Strome won a battle behind the net and fed the puck to Alexis Lafrenière who scored his second game winning goal.

He added another assist on Mika Zibanejad’s power play goal. The two assists gave him 300 on his NHL career.

Adam Fox added an assist on Lafrenière’s goal,  his 42nd assist of the year.  It moved  him into a tied for fourth with Mitch Marner. He leads all defensemen in scoring with 47 points and his assist total is seven more than second place Victor Hedman.   Fox narrowly missed a goal when his shot deflected off the face mask of Sabres goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen .

The Sabres were 1-2 on the power play with Sam Reinhart scoring just before time expiresd in the second period.  It came as a result of a rare lazy play by Pavel Buchnevich who had the clear, but didn’t fire it to the end boards.  It never got out of center ice and the Sabres were able to mount the rush that resulted in the goal.

The Sabres did an excellent job swarming the Rangers’ defensemen and the Blueshirts offer very little resistance to the Buffalo rush, mostly in the first period.

The Rangers had a two man advantage for 44 seconds in the third period.  They didn’t score on the 5v3, but were able to score once Buffalo got a man back. It was the fifth 5v3 for the Rangers this season and the second longest one of the  year.  They have scored twice when up two men.

The Rangers have now won three in a row for the third time this season. The longest winning streak was the four game sweep of the Devils.

David Quinn leaned a little more heavily on the the top two lines with Panarin leading all forwards with 22:12 minutes of ice time. Compare that to Vitali Kravtsov who was on for 8:35.