If there was every a game that the New York Rangers needed their goalie to steal, this was the one. Igor Shesterkin was absolutely fabulous as the Rangers were manhandled by the Maple Leafs, especially in the second period when they were outshot 17-2. Shesterkin stood on his head and got the Blueshirts to overtime when it became Panarin time as he scored his first goal of the season for the win.
In our game preview, our first key to winning was to stop Auston Matthews and the Rangers did exactly that. He took 16 shots with eight of them reaching Shesterkin who stopped them all. Matthews was superlative in his first game of the season, not rusty at all.
The Rangers were not as badly outplayed in the first period and Mika Zibanejad got his first goal of the season when Ryan Reaves forced a turnover in the Leafs’ zone.
The puck clearly thought this was nok hockey pic.twitter.com/82RF5kJYXm
— Rangers on MSG (@RangersMSGN) October 18, 2021
The goal was not initially called, but upon review, it was obviously a goal and the Blueshirts had the lead.
GOOD GOAL pic.twitter.com/4XPZNElcJS
— Rangers on MSG (@RangersMSGN) October 18, 2021
Micheal Bunting of the Leafs scored just 1:36 into the second period and that was a harbinger of things to come as the Toronto just dominated the Rangers. The Rangers even had two power plays and only had one shot on goal with the man advantage.
The third period was more even and the Rangers actually got a life after a relatively ineffective power play. Coach Gallant put Zibanejad and Panarin together on a line and that didn’t hurt either. When asked about it, Gallant said “We had to do something. After the second we were looking at each other, saying that wasn’t good at all so we wanted to change something up.”
The overtime was simply insane. After a slow start the teams exchanged chances with Matthews and Zibanejad with golden opportunities. Then, it was up to Zibanejad and Panarin as the Swede won the draw, got the puck to Panarin who put the puck past Jack Campbell.
COMMON ARTEMI PANARIN W pic.twitter.com/zaRJoFXViG
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) October 19, 2021
What followed was bedlam with half the Rangers swarming Panarin and the other half jumping Shesterkin.
Mika Zibanejad put it succinctly after the game, saying “We stole one. I don’t think we played good enough for long, if it’s not for him (Shesterkin) I don’t want to imagine what happens.” He called it “a good lesson.”
This guy. pic.twitter.com/ze4cUynB2x
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) October 19, 2021
Here is the video recap of the game:
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While the Rangers should be very pleased with the win, they cannot be happy in how they played.