The New York Rangers jumped back into second place in the Metropolitan Division with a tight, fought 2-1 victory over the Ottawa Senators Friday night at MSG, fending off a late momentum push by the Senators after they made it a one-goal game with 7:32 left in the third period.
New York improves to 7-2-1 on the season, adding to their 3-1-1 home record and maintaining a solid 39-22 goals for and against ratio for a plus-17 goal differential. They also tack onto their .750 win percentage for this season so far. Ottawa, meanwhile, drops to 5-5-0 on the season, right at the magic .500 mark, with a 1-4-0 road record and 39-33 goals for/against ratio, equaling a plus-six goal differential.
Alexis Lafreniere's two-point night especially helped the Rangers, where they found themselves drastically outshot by a Senators team, with Ottawa racking up 41 total shots compared to New York's 18.
Artemi Panarin opened the scoring just after three minutes into the first period, his seventh goal of the season, which would be the only goal in the first and second periods. Lafreniere made it 2-0 at roughly the same point in the third period on a Rangers PP for his fifth of the year, while the Ottawa's only goal came on an unassisted effort from Adam Gaudette, also his fifth tally of the season. Both teams combined for roughly 56 hits, each registering 28 total. The Rangers also totaled ten penalty minutes, while Ottawa had a pair's worth of penalties for four total minutes.
The Rangers' goaltending was stellar as usual, with Igor Shesterkin making an insane 40 total saves, allowing just that one Ottawa goal on 41 shots. That amounted to a stellar save percentage of .976, meaning that Shesterkin stopped nearly 98% of shots fired at his netfront!
Clearly, the defense gets an A+ for that much of a workout, while the offense gets a B+ for the gaps in scoring. A 6-2-1 team coming into this game should've probably put more pucks towards the net and in the net against a 5-4-0 team. Lafreniere gets top marks for the Rangers due to his two-point night, continuing his red-hot start to the season.
With tonight's result, Laffy now has five goals and five assists for 10 points in 10 games. That's right, it's now one point per game for the talented Quebecois left winger. And his hot start will only get warmer!
New York's next contest (7-2-1) is a Sunday matinee clash with their in-state rivals, the New York Islanders (3-5-2), at 1:00 p.m. EST. The Islanders are currently last in the Metropolitan and 29th in the overall league standings, which should make this game another easy win for the Rangers, who are 4th in the league standings, right behind their other major rivals, the New Jersey Devils. After that, it's a four-day break before they face the Buffalo Sabres on November 7 at 7:00 p.m. EST, before making a trip to Detroit to face the Red Wings on the 9th with another 7:00 p.m. EST start time.