NY Rangers win 4-1 in Kreider’s 700th Career Game

Chris Kreider helped lead the NY Rangers to victory as he played in his 700th career game, all with the Rangers. This is following the news from Thursday that gave Ben Harpur a two-year extension through the 2024-2025 season. Here is how the game went down.

Game Notes

At the start of the game, Will Cuylle was set to make his Madison Garden debut after playing his first career NHL game in his hometown of Toronto on Wednesday. He played 5:49 in Toronto and played 6:31 in this game.

Also, William Karlsson and Jonathan Marchessault played in their 400th career games as Golden Knights.

Period One

There was not much going on throughout most of the first period with the exceptions of great plays and scoring opportunities being wiped out by excellent goaltending. Adin Hill and Jaroslav Halak made some great saves to keep their teams in the game. Then the Rangers’ offense came alive.

Late in the period just under four minutes left, Vincent Trocheck (20) made a nice move and backhanded the puck. The puck deflected off of Kreider’s left leg and went in giving Kreider his 20th goal of the season. This was his eighth career 20-goal season.

Trocheck (14) made it 2-0 Rangers with 43 seconds left in the period after a great feed from Barclay Goodrow (14). Ryan Lindgren (14) also assisted in the play.

Period Two

Do fans love when a period starts with a fight? If so, the start of the second period was the perfect opportunity for you because a fight was how this period started.

Cuylle and Keegan Kolesar started chatting with each other during the faceoff. As soon as the puck dropped, the gloves came off. The crowd definitely was into it, getting loud after both players skated off.

At 4:57, Phil Kessel (9) scored, assisted by  William Carrier (6) and Karlsson (23). It just went through a very small opening on Halak’s glove side. This came right after a controversial play that could have easily been a tripping call against Carrier on Alexis Lafreniere. It wasn’t called and Kessel scored. This made it 2-1 going into the third period. Gerard Gallant was clearly upset, along with the fans who were booing.

Period Three

Filip Chytil (16) made it 3-1 with 5:40 left in the period. He did not give up on the play, sticking with it, and it paid off. Braden Schneider (7) and Ben Harpur (3) assisted on the play.

After pulling the goalie, Jimmy Vesey (9) got an empty net goal, giving the Rangers their fourth goal. Schneider (8) assisted on the goal. The final score was 4-1 Rangers.

The stars of the game were (3) Kreider, (2) Trocheck, and (1) Halak. Halak is now 6-0-0 in his career against the Golden Knights.

What’s Next?

The Rangers are set to have a long break. Hopefully, this does not affect how they play since their next game won’t be until February 6 when they host the Calgary Flames. The Rangers have not played the Flames this season, but are 0-2 in their most recent games, which were played last season.

In these two games, the Rangers were outscored 11-1, losing the first game 5-1 and the second game 6-0. The Rangers need to definitely stay on their toes so they don’t have another blowout like the previous games.

Again, hopefully, the amount of time the Rangers have off does not affect their gameplay once they return to the ice. The only way to find out is by watching the game, which will be at 7:30 PM ET on Monday, February 6.