Rangers stifling defense in 3-1 win over Devils

About the game

The Rangers came out and controlled the game with 11 of the first 13 shot attempts,  with eight of them requiring saves by Nico Daws.

Despite the Rangers domination, the Devils scored first.  Yegor Sharangovich made a really nice play, intercepting Jacob Trouba’s attempted pass and going in alone on Georgiev on a breakaway.  He deked Georgiev and scored on the backhand.

The goal gave Rangers fans a “we’ve been here before” feeling, but they dispensed with that by scoring on the power play just four minutes later.

It all came about because of a massive hit by Braden Schneider on Jesper Boqvist.  Sharangovich jumped Schneider and was pummeled by the Blueshirts rookie.

The Devils ended up shorthanded due to the instigator penalty and it was Ryan Strome who scored on a fabulous pass from Chris Kreider.

The goal came at 11:07 and Artemi Panarin made the pass to Kreider on the fake shot that fooled Nico Daws.

At 17:32 Pavel Zacha took a holding penalty on Adam Fox and the Rangers made them pay. This time it was Chris Kreider with the redirection of a pass from Panarin.

It was Kreider’s 47th goal and gave him the franchise record for power play goals in a season with 25.  The goal came just 25 seconds into the power play.

The first period was dominant for the Blueshirts as they led the Devils in every offensive category.

The second period was a strange period.  There were a total of seven shots on goal in the period with the Rangers getting only one of them.  It’s not to say that they didn’t have opportunities, when Andrew Copp went off for tripping, the Rangers had no fewer than three breakaways.  All were stymied by the Devils with a series of hooks, slashes and holds that were not called. That came after an Alexis Lafrenière breakway that he lost control of after being tripped.  The Rangers are not good at selling penalties.  If Lafrenière goes down, the Rangers get the power play.

It wasn’t a scintillating period, but considering the fact that New Jersey had strafed the Ranger for five goals in the second period last game, it was a work of art.

The offense was slightly better in the third period as the two teams combined for 11 shots on goal, eight by New Jersey and three for New York.  Luckily for the Rangers, four minutes into the period,  one of the three resultedin a goal as Justin Braun fired a shot from the left point and it eluded Daws, deflecting off his glove and into the net.

The Rangers continued their tight defense though the Devils tried a push.  When Adam Fox went off for hooking with 8:25 left in the game, it was an opportunity for New Jersey, but the penalty kill was outstanding and the Devils didn’t get a shot on goal.

The Devils got a couple decent opportunities in the third period, but Georgiev was up to the task and New Jersey was unable to get set up in the Rangers zone when they pulled Daws with two minutes left in the game.

Tomas Tatar took a tripping penalty wth 50 seconds left, but Devils’ coach Lindy Ruff didn’t even pull Daws again even when they had a two on one break and the Devils went out meekly.

Here is a video recap of the game.