Guess who showed up in the Rangers’ win over Montreal?

The New York Rangers won their first game of the season, a clutch 3-1 road win over the Montreal Canadiens. Alexis Lafrenière was the hero, scoring the winning goal in the first game he has played in his hometown in front of friends and family.

With Ryan Strome out due to COVID and then losing Kaapo Kakko late in the first period with an upper body injury, coach Gerard Gallant was forced to juggle his lineup.  But it was the one line that remained intact that was the line that came through when they needed a goal.

The Rangers played almost the perfect road game.  They were diligent defensively, won the special teams war and counter punched when they blew a third period lead.  It didn’t hurt that Igor Shesterkin played one of his finest games as a Ranger, stymieing the Canadiens repeatedly especially in the second and third periods.

If there was one thing the Rangers did this game, it was clearing the front of the net so Shesterkin could see the shots. It reduced the number of rebounds and seeing and saving tough shots clearly gave Shesterkin confidence.

Gerard Gallant made a point of complimenting Shesterkin’s stickhanding, saying “He really did a great job clearing the puck tonight.  Montreal forechecked hard and probably 10 or 12 times he got the puck over the blue line and made good outlet passes to our forwards, so that was really key…he made some great saves.”

Ranger fans have been waiting for Alexis Lafrenière to elevate his game and this night he did it. He played with his usual linemates in MIka Zibanejad and Chris Kreider, but after Kakko went out with the injury, he found himself on the first power play unit.

As a result, he played 16:16 minutes including five minutes with the man advantage.  He led the team with five shots on goal, had three hits and was very involved from the get go. His only mistake was a third period tripping penalty in the offensive zone, but his teammates bailed him out and killed it.  Special players have the ability to rise to the occasion and Lafrenière showed something special.

The Rangers showed a lot of resilience.  The Canadiens came out with a lot of emotion and as Gallant said, “they came out pretty good and they were banging the body early, we were fortunate to get by the first seven or eight minutes.”   Then,  Kreider scored the power play goal to take the lead, a one goal lead they held on to until midway through the third period when a defensive breakdown left Jonathan Drouin wide open front of the Rangers net for an easy goal.  That’s when Adam Fox, Mika Zibanejad and Lafrenière took over.

We wanted to see a full 60 minute effort in this game and the Blueshirts came through. Excellent goalkeeping, timely scoring, special teams success and tough defense was the recipe for success.

Here is a five minute video recap of the game:

Gerard Gallant has one game in the win column as Rangers coach and he and the Blueshirts will go for two on Monday against the Maple Leafs.

It was Gallant’s 271st career win and he now has a record of 271-217-56.