Rangers beat Tampa 2-1 on Zibanejad PP goal with 16 seconds left
If Chris Drury was looking for answers from his New York Rangers team, he certainly got them from this game. The Rangers played with playoff level intensity and kept pace with the two-time Stanley Cup champions and were able to come away with a win on a power play goal with only 16 seconds left. It was a great game and gives hope to all Rangers fans when it comes to the postseason.
The duel between Igor Shesterkin and Andrei Vasilevskiy lived up to the advanced billing as both netminders were outstanding. The Lightning tempted fate, giving the Rangers six power plays and it finally cost them as Mika Zibanejad scored.
The Lightning have to be considered a favorite to repeat as Stanley Cup champions. They are battle hardened and have the same core players and depth to do it again. The fact is, the Rangers won all three games that they played against the Lightning and they did it playing playoff hockey.
Jacob Trouba said “It’s exciting to win games like that…that’s what we need against these type of teams and these are the teams we want to be playing against, playing tight games and being able to come out on top.”
Could the Blueshirts use some depth scoring and more help on the blueline? Absolutely. But as constituted, this team can play with anybody. This game gave Drury a realistic picture of what to expect when the playoffs roll around.
Gerard Gallant was very happy with the results. “That’s three in a row that we’ve played the way we wanna play. I think we’re finding our game and everyone’s enjoying ourselves…it was a great hockey game, great goaltending at both ends, a fun game to coach. ” He called it “another battle, a low scoring, playoff type of game.”
The Lightning came out of the first period with the 1-0 lead and had the better of the play. They swarmed the Rangers early and the Blueshirts didn’t get a shot on goal for the first four and a half minutes.
The Rangers were able to get some balance when Victor Hedman was sent off for delay of game, but the Tampa penalty kill held the Rangers to one shot, a harbinger of things to come.
The Lightning got a power play when Patrik Nemeth was called for interference when he got tangled up with Mathieu Joseph. They scored a minute into the man advantage when Brayden Point was able to bang home a loose puck between Igor Shesterkin’s legs.
Power Play Pointer: Activated. 🚨 pic.twitter.com/a0ePn2Y5MV
— Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) March 20, 2022
The goal was not without controversy. Shesterkin had made the stop on a Victor Hedman slap shot, but didn’t know where the puck was. He froze for a couple seconds, but then moved when he didn’t get a whistle. At that point, the puck came free and Point darted in a poked it into the neet. The Rangers were upset over the slow whistle, but the goal counted and the Rangers had to come from behind once again.
They did exactly that when Jacob Trouba scored at 9:25 in the second period.
🚂🚂🚂
— Rangers Videos (@SNYRangers) March 20, 2022
🎥 @NYRangers pic.twitter.com/CRBJXwM7S8
The Rangers were buzzing when Alexis Lafreniere shot the puck in from the blue line and Trouba was able to beat Vasilevskiy when he got to the rebound. The Rangers had been in control of the game, outshooting the Lightning 8-3 before the Trouba goal.
Tampa coach Jon Cooper challenged the goal claiming goaltender intereference, but the call on the ice was confirmed and the Lightning had to kill off another penalty as a result.
The Lightning had to kill off three straight penalties and were outstanding doing it, keeping the Rangers’ power play from getting set up. One of the penalties was to Pat Maroon who ran Shesterkin who had gone behind the net to handle the puck. Ryan Lindgren immediately challenged Maroon and there was a short wrestling match. Maroon waited until the linesmen were restraining them to try to pummel Lindgren.
Going into the third period tied 1-1, both teams settled down and played solid defensive hockey. Each team had some chances, but Vasilevskiy was good and Shesterkin was even better.
I-GOR 😤😤 pic.twitter.com/Fwpq1tR5Wd
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) March 20, 2022
There were a lot of Ranger fans in the arena and there was an “Igor, Igor” chant after he made one nice save.
Ryan Reaves got into his third fight of the season when he took on Maroon four minutes into the period. Maroon wanted no part of Reaves and didn’t even throw a punch.
Couple big boys going at it pic.twitter.com/2B4rMnzwMa
— Spittin' Chiclets (@spittinchiclets) March 20, 2022
It looked like the game was heading to overtime when Erik Cernak inadvertantly high sticked Chris Kreider with only 2:15 left in the game. It was the sixth power play of the game for New York and it was no better than the first five with the Rangers unable to set up or get a shot.
With 36 seconds left in the penalty there was a play stoppage and Gallant sent out the first unit. Zibanejad won the neutral zone draw, the Rangers got into the Tampa zone and then Artemi Panarin made a fabulous cross ice pass to Zibanejad for the one-timer that beat Vasilevskiy.
MIKA FREAKING MARCH pic.twitter.com/n9692Hogba
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) March 20, 2022
16 seconds left in the game and the Rangers had the lead.
Here is a video recap of the game:
If anyone thinks the Rangers cannot compete with the elite teams in the NHL, think again. Sure, they rely on the power play, the goalie and their elite players, but that is enough to win on many nights.
As Gallant said, “They’re a great team (the Lightning) and they do a great job. You feel good when you come in on the road and beat a team like that. It’s a good win for our group and we’ve got to go play another real good team tomorrow.”
Trouba spoke about the team effort. “We’ve played two games where we’ve had a pretty consistent effort from the whole lineup, there’s no passengers and that’s what almost we feel better about, building our game that way.”
We’ll see what Chris Drury does by Monday to further improve the team and when Kaapo Kakko and Kevin Rooney come back from injuries, the team will be whole. If they play like this, no team will want to play the Rangers.
Notes on the game
The win improved the Rangers’ record to 39-18-5. The Penguins beat Arizona so they remain two points ahead of New York. The win moved New York three points ahead of Washington and two points up on the Bruins.
The Rangers’ domination over the Atlantic Division continues. They are an astounding 15-2-1 getting 31 of a possible 36 points.
The Rangers swept the season series from Tampa and are the only NHL team to win three games against them this season. The last time the Rangers won a game in regulation in Tampa was in December 2015. They did win three of six games in Tampa in the interim in overtime or shootout.
The six power plays were the most in one game for the Rangers this season. They have had five power plays in a game eight times.
The Rangers remained in second place in the NHL with a 26.6% success rate on the PP. When they score on the power play, the Rangers are 26-6-4.
Mika Zibanejad moved into a tie for second placein the NHL with 13 power play goals, four behind Leon Draisaitl and Chris Kreider who has 20. He is two off his career high of 15, set in 2019-20.
Jacob Trouba tied his career high with his 10th goal of the season. He had 10 goals as a 19-year old rookie in 2013-14.
Igor Shesterkin beat Andrei Vasilevskiy for the second time this season and his career. He stopped 28 of 29 shots and this season against Tampa he stopped 91 of 95 shots for a .958 save percentage. Of the four goals he allowed, only two were at even strength.
This Igor dude is pretty good.
— Rangers Videos (@SNYRangers) March 20, 2022
🎥 @NYRangers pic.twitter.com/58VOfLDfXU
Shesterkin improved his league leading save percentage to .938 and his top goals against average to 2.05.
Shesterkin also became the fastest Ranger goalie to reach 30 wins in a season, doing it in 41 games. The previous best was 46 games for Henrik Lundqvist.
Artemi Panarin and Adam Fox added assists and Panarin is third in the NHL with 56 and Fox is second among defensemen with 53. Roman Josi has taken over the league lead on an incredible run with 13 assists in his last six games and now leads all blueliners in scoring.
The third line of Filip Chytil, Barclay Goodrow and Dryden Hunt had an excellent game and it was Hunt’s work on the boards that led to the Trouba goal. Hunt just missed scoring in the first period when the puck slid off his stick when he could have backhanded the puck into an open net. Goodrow was stopped point blank by Vasilevskiy just moments later.
The Rangers defense is something special considering their youth. The Ranger defense’s average age is 24 and they held their own against a tough Tampa team. Compare that to the Lightning with a blueline that averages 28.7 years old with four players over 30.
This was the Rangers’ 21st come-from-behind win of the season, tied for the most with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The win improved the Rangers record in one-goal games to 23-8-5. That record includes one-goal games when an empty net goal was scored.
Frank Vatrano’s mission has been to shoot and he led the Rangers in shots on goal with five.
This is the third time this season that the Rangers have won a game by scoring in the last minute of play. They’ve won five games by scoring in the last three minutes of play.
Kudos to Ryan Lindgren standing up to Pat Maroon for running Shesterkin and to Ryan Reaves for following up by trying to get Maroon engaged in the third period. Maroon was a punk for hitting Lindgren after the linesmen had tied them up and he was a total wuss when challenged by Reaves, not even trying to throw a punch. Shesterkin was playful with the Rangers’ heavyweight after the game.<
— lindsey ☻ (@zibanegoal) March 20, 2022
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My 3 Rangers stars
- Igor Shesterkin did it again, making the important saves when he needed to. He seems to rise to the occasion, especially playing against other Russian goalies and if anyone saw the look on his face when they had pulled him against the Islanders for the extra attacker after being bested by Ilya Sorokin, you knew he would not lose to Vasilevskiy. One even strength goal in two games, Shestorkin is back.
- You cannot hold Mika Zibanejad down. Let him take that one-timer from the faceoff circle and he is lethal. Their number one center is determined to take the Rangers to the next level and he did it this night.
- Jacob Trouba gets the third star for yeoman’s work on defense and for scoring that important first goal. Trouba has stepped up and taken his game to another level this season, embracing Gerard Gallant’s offensive system, a system that is allowing him to contribute to the offense more than he had in his first two years in New York.
- Honorable mention goes to Artemi Panarin for that sublime pass to Zibanejad for the game winning goal. There are not many players who can make that pass and for all of the criticism he takes for passing the puck and not shooting, when it works, it works.
The official 3 stars
- Igor Shesterkin – Rangers
- Andrei Vasilevskiy – Lightning
- Mika Zibanejad – Rangers
A television rant
The Rangers improved their record on national tv to 8-4-0. That’s all well and good, but let’s just say that the folks at ESPN and ABC had better get their act together before the Stanley Cup Playoffs because their productions are dreadful.
The most egregious offense is the use of the floating skycam at the most important moments of a game. Whenever there was a power play instead of using a camera close to the ice they switched to this high overhead shot that is always moving.
It’s nausea inducing and makes it almost impossible to track the puck. Hopefully someone at ABC and ESPN looks at Twitter because if you search on ABC and NHL you will find hundreds of tweets complaining about the use of that camera.
It’s a case of a television director compelled to make use of a new toy. That camera has no place in an NHL arena and anyone who knows the game should know that. Then again, if ABC spent thousands of dollars installing that camera, they must feel that they have to use it. We implore them to save the money and don’t even bring it to their next game.
They also use a split screen when talking about certain players. Do we really need to see Brandon Hagel sitting on the bench in a split screen so the action is barely viewable while they talk about his trade to Tampa?
The announcers on ABC are better than the ESPN team, but they still talk incessantly, mostly NOT about the action in the game we are watching.
We have to hope that someone at ABC/ESPN realizes that hockey fans want to watch the game and the best way to satisfy them is to actually show the game from the best possible angles.
The telecasts have improved and we are actually seeing more replays (though they completely missed the Hedman puck over the glass penalty). The ABC studio team is more at ease than the TNT threesome, but someone should tell Chris Chelios he doesn’t need to wear a tie.
What’s next
There’s no rest for the weary as the Rangers take on the team with the third best record in the NHL, the Carolina Hurricanes. It will be Alexandar Georgiev in net as the Rangers play the second game of this three game road trip. The Rangers lost badly, 6-3 , in Carolina in their only meeting this season.
The Hurricanes have lost three in a row and Nino Niederreiter will be serving a one game suspension. The Carolina offense is struggling a bit and they have scored three goals or fewer in their last 10 games.
It’s a short turnaround as puck drop is scheduled for 6pm. The telecast will be on MSG+ and the live stream will be on ESPN+.
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