Rangers beat Blackhawks 6-2, win streak at 7

The juggernaut known as the New York Rangers just keeps on rolling.  They defeated the Chicago Blackhawks handily, 6-2, on the road despite a shaky first period.  They scored four third period goals to seal the win and the power play was 2-2 while the penalty killers were a perfect 4-4.

Artemi needed one point to hit 500 for his career and it took all of 61 seconds to get it.  He got the primary assist on the Rangers’ first goal,, setting up Jacob Trouba.  In the third period he added two goals and another assist so he is well on his way to 600 points.

Alexandar Georgiev was very good in goal especially after a first period that Rangers Coach Gerard Gallant called “real tough to watch.” Both teams didn’t play much defense, but it was the Rangers who solidified their play and they dominated the rest of the way.

The turning point was a massive hit by Jacob Trouba on Chicago forward Jujhar Khaira at the 6:10 mark. Khaira went down hard and landed on his back and lay motionless on the ice.

He had to be taken off the ice on a stretcher though the word from the Hawks was that he was moving and was okay.

There was no penalty assessed on the play, something Gallant agreed with, saying,   “In my eye it was all clean.  He had his head down big time, looking at the puck and Trouba stepped into him.”

While Gallant said that there no shift in momentum from the hit, it did appear to impact the Blackhawks as they could only muster four shots on the goal the rest of the period, despite a power play.

About the game

You have to give credit to Alexandar Georgiev for bending, but not breaking after giving up two first period goals.   The Rangers jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead on a Trouba bomb set up by Artemi Panarin just 61 seconds into the game.

The lead lasted all of 43 seconds before Erik Gustafsson scored an unassisted goal off a failed clear by Julien Gauthier.  His shot from the blueline eluded Georgiev who was screened by Patrik Nemeth who tried to block the shot. A little over five minutes later it was Kirby Dach who scored off a scrum in the slot.

The period ended the Rangers down 2-1.  That didn’t last long as Henrik Borgstrom went off for hooking and Panarin tied the game off a deflection of a Mika Zibanejad shot that ended up on Panarin’s stick with a wide open net.

That was the only goal of the second period and the teams were tied going into the third period. The Rangers had to kill off a K’Andre Miller penalty at the start of the period,but built momentum and this time it was Chris Kreider who scored on the power play when Kirby Dach went off for slashing.  Kreider redirected  a perfect pass/shot from Adam Fox.

With eight minutes left it was the third line that got on the board with Kevin Rooney scoring off another perfect feed from Adam Fox after Ryan Reaves did the work on the boards.

With three minutes left, the Blackhawks pulled goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and Panarin got his second goal and fourth point on an empty net goal.  A late goal by Barclay Goodrow was set up by Reaves and was simply icing on the cake.

Here is a five minute recap of the game.

With the win, the Rangers improved their record to 17-4-3 and 37 points, more than any team in the Western Conference and behind only Florida, Toronto and Washington and the Rangers have games in hand on all of them.  19 teams have played more games than the Rangers and that means that their points percentage is the best in the NHL.

They have won seven in a row, tied with the Minnesota Wild and Dallas Stars for the longest current streak in the NHL.  This was the Rangers ninth road win, third most behind Carolina and Calgary who have 11.

Whether you look a their offense, their power play, the team defense, their penalty kill, their hitting and their willingness to back each other up, this Ranger team is hard to play against.  Mission accomplished.