Playoffs bound after a 5 year drought!

It’s been five years with no playoffs, but the New York Rangers are headed to the postseason.  They did it with a convincing 5-1 win over the Ottawa Senators at Madison Square Garden. It was big night for the Blueshirts with Chris Kreider on the brink of scoring 50 goals and Artemi Panarin leading the way offensively.  Oh yes, it was another rock solid defensive effort as they held the Senators to only 22 shots.

Gerard Gallant summed up the game perfectly. “From start to finish it was an excellent game.  I liked everything about it.  We created a lot of scoring chances.  We shot the puck. Kreids got a couple beautiful goals. It was a great night. Shesty looked really sharp. I just thought we came out ready to play.”

When asked about making the playoffs Gallant said the team wanted to win. “We came to to the rink wanting to win and get in the playoffs and that’s what we done.”

Chris Kreider focused on the team and not his individual effort. “Our primary goal from the beginning of the season was to make the playoffs.  We’ve taken that first step.  We’ve got nine games left.  We’ve got to continue to work on our game, play the right way.”

Ryan Strome noted that Gallant’s coaching style and philosophy of maintaining an even temperament has been adopted by the team. “We’ve been focused every day.  We’ve come to the rink and we’ve just focused on the next game.  I don’t think we’ve dwelled on bad performances or been too high on good performances.   We try to come with the same mindset.  From the top down that’s what Turk (Gallant) does every day  and it rubs off on us.  We’ve just been focused every day on getting better.”

When this season is over, no matter how far the Rangers can go in the playoffs, we will look back and bless the day that Chris Drury hired Gerard Gallant.  All season long he has been on message and it’s been amazing to see how he has transformed this team into one of the best in the NHL.

About the game

Despite the fact that the Senators jumped out to a 1-0 lead just over two minutes into the game, it never felt like the Rangers would lose.  A defensive breakdown left Austin Watson all alone in the slot and he converted on a nice feed from Mark Kastelic.

The fact that the Senators scored at all was unlikely as the Rangers had 20 of the first 21 shot attempts and outshot Ottawa 6-1 for the first 11 minutes.  The only shot by Ottawa was in the net.  The offense was helped by a penalty to Josh Norris that the Rangers couldn’t convert on.

All of that pressure finally paid off when Artemi Panarin scored an unassisted goal.

Andrew Copp lost the offensive zone faceoff, but pressured the Senators, forcing a bad pass to the slot that Panarin intercepted and put past Anton Forsberg.

The second period was all Rangers as they scored three goals to build a 4-1 lead. They had to kill off a penalty to Adam Fox three minutes in and the penalty killers didn’t allow a shot on goal by Ottawa and had three fabulous scoring chances that they couldn’t finish. One was a two-on-one and Mika Zibanejad passed up a shot to try to get the pass to Chris Kreider.  On Friday he had pledged to keep passing to Kreider until he got to 50 goals and it looked like he was try to his word.

At 6:56, it was Copp’s turn to score on a fantastic feed from Artemi Panarin.

The Russian threaded a pass through traffic to Copp who was alone in front.

Two minutes later, Chris Krieder notched his 48th goal, set up by Ryan Lindgren and Mika Zibanejad.

Lindgren, of all people, led the rush up ice and dished the puck to Kreider who fired a shot past Forsberg.

Ryan Strome wrapped up the scoring with a goal 17:27 on a nifty feed from Panarin who had led the rush down the left wing into the Ottawa zone.

Somehow, he saw Strome driving to the net and made a perfect pass that Strome put past Forsberg.

The second period ended with the score 4-1 with the Rangers outshooting Ottawa 25-9 and with an incredible 54-15 shot attempts advantage for the game.

The Rangers settled down in the third period and played a fairly passive period with the only goal coming again from Kreider as he put a snap shot past Forsberg for number 49.

It was an unusual night for Kreider as he didn’t score on the power play and both of his goals were from a distance, no tip-ins or deflections.

Igor Shesterkin was a little more busy in the third period as he made 13 saves to preserve the win.

Here is a five minutes video recap of the game:

My 3 Rangers stars

1. Artemi Panarin was the best player on the ice in this game.  He led all players with three points and had another dynamic game.  He has been unstoppable and you have to hope he is peaking for the playoffs.
2. Chris Kreider scored two goals in the most unusual way and had three or four other good scoring chances.  It was another solid game for the spiritual leader of the team.
3. The entire defense was fantastic in this game, but we’ll give Ryan Lindgren the third star for his two assists.  Lindgren was on ice for three Ranger goals and was ready to jump into the offense.  Look at the first Kreider goal, Lindgren actually led the rush on the play.

The official 3 stars

1. Artemi Panarin
2. Chris Kreider
3. Ryan Lindgren

What’s next

It will be a showdown for first place on Tuesday night as the Carolina Hurricanes come to New York.  They play the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday, so they may be two points ahead of the Rangers by Tuesday.  If they lose they will be tied with New York with the same number of games left.

The Blueshirts travel to Philadelphia on Wednesday to play the Flyers.

And the playoffs will start in three and a half weeks.