Rangers beat Bruins 5-4 for a wild finish to a crazy season

Notes on the game

The Rangers finished the season with 60 points. Prorated that would be an 88 point season, probably not enough to make the playoffs in a regular season.  That said, this season they would definitely be a playoff team in the North Division and would be fighting for a spot in the West and Central Divisions.

The Rangers had 62 point after 56 games last season while they exceeded the 56 game totals in 2017-18 and 2018-19.

Mika Zibanejad’s 50 point season total is a remarkable number considering that he had only one goal and two assists after 15 games.  That means he totaled 23 goals and 24 assists in 41 games.  Even better, before his St. Patrick’s Day explosion against the Flyers, Zibanejad had scored only three goals in 27 games so he scored 21 goals in his last 29 games.

23 year old Justin Richards made his NHL debut, playing on a line with Morgan Barron and Filip Chytil.  He played 10:11, the fewest minutes of any forward and finished with two shots on goal, two hits, one blocked shot and one takeaway.  It was energetic debut for the Minnesota-Duluth forward who is the son of former NHL head coach Todd Richards.

When Nick Ritchie scored at 18:12 of the second period, it ended a shutout streak of 112:56 minutes for Keith Kinkaid over the Bruins.   He had shut out the Bruins for  34:44 minutes in relief of Alexandar Georgiev on March and then followed that with a 4-0  shutout over the the Bruins two days later.

Kinkaid had not played in a game since dropping a 5-4 decision to Washington on March 28 a span of 22 games.

Zibanejad, Ryan Strome and Alexis Lafrenière were the only Rangers to play in all 56 games.

Lafrenière and Nikolai Knyzhov of the San Jose Sharks are the only rookies who have played in all of their team’s games.  Knyzhov still has two games remaining in his season.

After tonight the Rangers will be one of seven teams that have played all 56 games so it is too early to know where the Rangers will end up overall in league statistics such as the power play and penalty kill.

One statistic is guaranteed.  The Rangers will finish dead last in faceoff winning percentage at 44.5%.

Of the ten players who made it on the scoresheet, five were rookies, a statement about the future of this team.

Adam Fox ended the season without scoring a point in his last six games.  He still leads all defensemen in scoring with 47 points and is six among all NHL players with 42 assists.  There is a lot of chatter about Fox as a contender for the Norris Trophy, all justified.

K’Andre Miller scored his fifth goal and leads all rookies in average ice time with 21:07 and is third among rookie defensemen in scoring. His plus/minus of +9 is second best among rookies.

Alexis Lafrenière finished with 12 goals, sixth most among rookies and 12th in points with 21.   11 of the 12 rookies who scored more than Lafrenière averaged more ice time than the Rangers’ rookie.

Igor Shesterkin was one of only four rookie netminders to appear in 25 games this season. He had he best save percentage (.916), second best goals against average (2.74) and second most wins (16)