Shesterkin steals another one in 3-1 win over Seattle

The New York Rangers are making this a habit. They are winning games that they deserved to lose.  It’s a bad habit to get into, but the positive is they are finding ways to win and that’s what counts.  Igor Shesterkin was lights out, yet again and the top players stepped up,  Adam Fox, Chris Kreider and Barclay Goodrow scored and the assists were by Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad and Goodrow.   Yes, the top players.

After a well played first period, the Rangers were sitting on a one-goal lead. Kreider scored his first goal off the rush on the off wing, beating Phillipp Grubauer.

The Kraken outshot the Blueshirts 9-8 and the Rangers had the edge on the faceoff dots 9-7.    Then the second period started and the hockey gods tilted the ice…a lot.

Look at these numbers.  Shots were 13-2 for the Kraken. Seattle won 15 of 18 faceoffs.  The Rangers had to block eight shots.  Seattle had 28 shot attempts to only nine for the Rangers.

The positives were the play of Shesterkin who was just outstanding and the fact that the Rangers had structure on defense, keeping the Kraken on the perimeter and limiting Seattle’s chances.  Of those 28 shots attempts, only five were high danger scoring chances.

The negative was the completely impotent Rangers offense with only two of those nine shot attempts getting through and none of them were of the high danger variety.

Of course, the Kraken eventually tied the game on a beautiful backhander by Jordan Eberle.  The Rangers were lucky to escape the second period tied 1-1.  As Coach Gallant said, “We just stopped playing, second period, one shot, we lost every faceoff, so…disappointing, frustrating but we found a way and Igor was the main reason.”

They came out and played better in the third period.  The fourth line in particular was able to get some sustained time in the offensive zone.   That’s when Artemi Panarin took over after another special save by Shesterkin.  Fox got the puck to Panarin who controlled it in the  Kraken’s zone and fed  Fox who scored on a wrist shot streaking in from the blue line.

Barclay Goodrow got the empty net goal on an extra effort from Mika Zibanejad and the game was over.

Gallant noted the improvement, saying  “They competed  hard in the third period, they played a different game.  We found a way to score a goal and we got the empty netter. We all know we gotta do better.”

Here’s a five minute video recap of the game.

It was nowhere near the complete effort they showed against Columbus, but it was another road win and the defensive structure was there along with sublime goaltending.  The Rangers are tied for second place in the Metropolitan Division and only two teams have more than the Blueshirts’ 13 points.