A ten-goal game that the Rangers manage to hold on and win is a great result for the Blueshirts. This was far from a traditional win but the Rangers showed good heart and fight to come back from behind in this game. A three-goal third period with goals from K’Andre Miller, Alexis Lafreniere, and Chris Kreider was good enough to fight the turning tides and show that the Rangers were good enough to beat the streaky Blues.
Despite being outshot 29-24 this was a positive game for the Rangers. While it wasn’t a complete sixty minutes, there was a lot more to like and take from these performances than some of the lesser performances recently. This wasn’t a game that the Rangers were overly dependent on their goaltending either. Scoring six goals should hopefully spark the offense into waking up the scoring depth of this roster.
New York’s special teams were definitely the deciding factor in this game. Scoring on the only powerplay they had as well as grabbing a short-handed goal to put the game out of reach for the St Louis Blues is enough to see Gallant and his hockey club grab the win in this one. This was a game that they could have lost and the Rangers decided that they wanted to fight for each other in this one.
After a super low event first 15 minutes of the first period, this game ended with 10 goals and all of them were on netminders. While this was a very fun game to watch, it also ended with the result the Rangers needed. It’s not enough to say all the problems are gone, but this was a good starting point for the rest of the season. This is a strong base to build on for this roster. Performances like this breed confidence.
This victory doesn’t put the Rangers into the playoff places, but it stops them from falling adrift in the race for the playoff places in the East. With the Penguins still trying to figure it out, the Hurricanes remembering that they’re meant to be good, the Islanders playing very solid hockey, and the Devils not realizing this isn’t the year 2000, the Rangers can’t afford to lose too much ground to the teams ahead of them.