Rangers finally show fans, and the rest of the league, their scary side in dominating win against Bruins

The New York Rangers showed us a lot this afternoon. Which parts are real and which parts are potentially just an aberration is to be determined. But the thing I'm most sure of after today is that at least one person on the team has been angrily following the general media narrative surrounding their squad of late. A narrative that was bizarrely negative even after they went into Carolina Wednesday night and knocked off one of the Eastern Conference's top teams.

I know this because the Rangers then marched into Boston's TD Garden and did this to the Bruins in front of 17,850 innocent bystanders.

Jeez, c'mon guys, Joonas Korpisalo's family was probably watching!

That's 11 minutes of pure action cinema right there. This was Maximus Decimus Meridius strutting into the fighting pits of Zucchabar and calmly mercing an entire legion of unsuspecting dudes wearing silly helmets before tossing his weapon into the stands (presumably in the direction of David Pastrnak) and screaming over and over again, "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?"

The 6-2 victory makes three wins in a row for New York and places them firmly back in playoff competition, but today's performance paired with the last couple weeks of Rangers hockey actually might be sending us stronger signals about the team's identity and potential than we thought. In fact, you could make the case that we should've seen today's rout of the Bruins coming. That's just one of several major takeaways from this afternoon that fans should take note of.

Reports of "the core's" demise appear to have been greatly exaggerated

Every single day in recent weeks, all the way up to gametime today, one of the most suffocating media narratives in New York has been a constant sounding of the alarm over the team's aging and fading core. Should we trade Lafrenière? Is Trocheck really just a third-line center? We need to get rid of Artemi Panarin before he leaves during Free Agency! He might be washed anyway!

Artemi, what do you have to say for yourself?

That was point one of four Panarin had on the day, a goal and three assists in all. Meanwhile Mika Zibanejad's power play prowess returned in a big way today, and had fans flashing back to a different, more exciting time.

Is there anything more satisfying on planet Earth than a Mika one-timer on the power play? Especially when it's set up by Panarin and Adam Fox. And apparently they enjoyed it so much that they decided to do it again less than a minute later.

Then there was Vincent "Bottom Six" Trocheck, who notched two more points this afternoon, moving him just slightly under a point-per-game pace on the season. Even young Alexis Lafrenière was rewarded with an empty net goal for battling hard late in his own zone.

Finally, Adam Fox. I refuse to believe there are actually Rangers fans out there who are dissatisfied with Fox's play. But if there are, I'd like to point you to the stat sheet where Fox tallied another three assists today, extending his point-scoring streak to five straight games. He's now pulled into second place among all NHL defensemen in points with 25, trailing only Colorado's Cale Makar.

The core group coming through in such a big way today is obviously a relief, but this afternoon's game actually signaled an even more significant development in the long term.

Dominating with depth

The Rangers dominated the game from start to finish and they got a ton of offensive production from the top six, but Head Coach Mike Sullivan also showed tremendous trust in the progression of his bottom two lines. Here was the 5v5 time on ice totals for today:

Sullivan essentially spread minutes evenly between the top three lines and the fourth line got its fair share as well. Even more promising, Sullivan's trust was rewarded by on-ice performance. As you can see, all four lines outshot their opponents.

This all seems genuinely to be a result of patient and practical coaching because we've seen slow but steady improvement throughout the season now among the players in the bottom half of the lineup. Noah Laba, Brett Berard, Sam Carrick, Adam Edstrom and Jonny Brodzinski all logged high-quality scoring chances around the net and it's become a growing trend in the past few games. It's the kind of turning point that could spell the difference between missing the playoffs and making a deep run in the spring.

And the proof has already been in the pudding, if you know where to look...

The season got off to such a frustrating start that Rangers media and fans have remained skeptical the entire season, even through this afternoon. That anger and skepticism might be distracting us from some subtle, but pretty promising shifts in play of late.

For one, the Rangers scoring woes were already fading even before today. Coming into Black Friday, the Blueshirts were ranked 13th in league scoring over the previous ten games. After today, they might even be cracking the top ten.

And then there was the lukewarm reaction to the Rangers win in Carolina Wednesday. Some analysts immediately chalked the victory up to luck and Igor Shesterkin, predictably justifying their argument through a single stat: shots on goal. In that game, the Hurricanes outshot the Rangers 38-18.

However, a slightly closer examination of the data revealed a flaw in that argument. When you adjusted for the imbalance in penalties (the Rangers took 4 while Carolina only was penalized once), New York slightly outplayed Carolina at even strength and generated high-quality scoring chances at a far more efficient pace. Extenuating circumstances just fudged the result.

Compare that today, when the team stayed disciplined and out of the penalty box for the most part, while also drawing a few penalties at the same time (something they have failed dramatically to do in recent weeks). Suddenly the ice tilts even further in the Rangers direction.

The bottom line is the good hockey has been here for a while now. It's just taken some better luck and tactical tweaking to have it properly translate in the box score. Now that it has, the question surrounding this team might not be will we be playing in May? Instead, we might start asking how do we continue into June?