A huge win in a must win game

The New York Rangers have a life.  They finally solved the Carolina Hurricanes with  3-1 win in front of a delirious crowd at Madison Square Garden.  Igor Shesterkin was excellent in goal, notching another win when facing over 40 shots.  The only time he has lost in 15 games facing 40 or more shots was the 79 save effort in the triple overtime loss to Pittsburhg.

It was a big win and the Rangers got noticeable contributions that were missing in the first two games, specifically the top line and the power play.

Not picking nits with the ESPN coverage, but they harped on the fact that the Rangers were dominated by the Hurricanes. While statistically it was one-sided and Igor Shesterkin had to be at his best, it wasn’t like the Rangers were completely ineffective.  Just look at the final score.

At even strength, the Hurricanes had 75 shot attempts that included 20 high danger scoring chances.  The Rangers had 56 shot attempts and 11 high danger chances.

But when it mattered, the numbers were different.  The Hurricanes had six minutes of power play time, but were held scoreless and generated only three high danger scoring chances.   The Rangers had almost half the power play time (3:14) and scored one goal on two high danger chances.

In the game on Wednesday, the Hurricanes third period push completely overwhelmed the Rangers and it was much less effective in this game.  5v5 the Canes generated 15 shot attempts to the Rangers’ 14 and had four high danger chances to the Rangers’ one. It was a much better structured response by New York in this game.

The biggest difference was the work of the Mika Zibanejad line.  Both Zibanejad and Kreider scored with Tyler Motte adding an empty net goal. The got a huge boost when they scored first on the power play.  It was on one of Zibanejad’s patented one-timers at the 11:54 mark and came on a holding penalty by Brady Skjei.

It ended a scoreless streak that had reached over 128 minutes.

It was the first power play goal in six tries for the Rangers.

Kreider’s goal was the result of hard work by that line including Filip Chytil who replaced Frank Vatrano for most the first half game on that unit.

Kreider explained how he scored.  “I came around the net, saw the defenseman didn’t have a stick and tried to walk out.”  The defenseman without a stick was Tony DeAngelo who had the stick flipped out of his hands by Mika Zibanejad.

Of course, they would have gotten nowhere without the stellar work of Igor Shesterkin who was outstanding except for a misplay on the only Hurricanes’ goal.

Gerard Gallant said it best,  “Igor was outstanding for us and that was the key…i think the first half of the game we were too loose, gave them too many chances to score.”

Shesterkin had to make 43 saves but he said “It was a good thing that they made so many shots, they were really trying to shoot from anywhere…none of the shots were that dangerous.”

The one goal he did give up was on a puck he would normally stop. “I let down the team and I have to fix the mistake that I made.”

Gallant made some big moves with his lines and used the new configuration for about half the game.  His explanation was “I just wanted to get Copper (Andrew Copp) in the middle.  Stronger faceoff guy on the dot.   He did pretty well though we still had a lot of trouble on the faceoff dot tonight.  That was the thinking early on, but we wanted to get to my lines after that.”

Gallant was very complimentary of Chytil’s work on the ZIbanejad line. He explained the return to the original lines saying that there were other issues.

The Rangers had their chances.  Antti Raanta made a great stop on a shorthanded shot by Tyler Motte at the start of the third period.

Most insane was when Chris Kreider missed the empty net with 2:12 left.

It would have sealed the win, but it was a brutal miss that left Ranger fans afraid that it would come back to haunt them.  Luckily, Tyler Motte’s clearing attempt with 1:23 went into the empty net and it was over.

The game ended with a fight between Max Domi and Ryan Lindgren along with a lot of jawing between the teams.  The fight came after Domi cross checked Lindgren as the buzzer sounded.

Gallant didn’t mince words about that.  “I wasn’t happy with the bullshit at the end of the game that they initiated.  We didn’t do that when the games were close.  They put their guys on, that’s fine.  If they want to play that way, we got the guys to come at you.”  He added “I don’t like it at the end of a game. The game is over.  They’re not sending any message.  We’ve got the guy that can handle all their guys is we want to.  We didn’t do it like that.  Domi took a cheap shot at our defenseman…you got a long memory.in this to think about things.  It might be on the other foot someday.”

Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said he didn’t see the play and had no comment.

It remains to be seen if Ryan Reaves takes any action in the next game.  We probably won’t see anything unless a game becomes one-sided which isn’t too likely based on the first three matches.

So, the Rangers win the first of two games  at home.  They need to win on Tuesday night to avoid a second straight 3-1 deficit.  For all of the talk of how much the Hurricanes have dominated the Rangers, they have have scored five goals to the Rangers’ four and but for a couple breaks, Carolina could be going into Game Four hoping to tie the series.