Rangers' Offense Keeps Firing On All Cylinders with Dominance over Montreal

The New York Rangers continued their dominant 5-0-1 start to the season, knocking aside fellow Original Six rivals Montreal. The final score was 7-2 on a Tuesday night in their game for the NHL's one-night-only "Frozen Frenzy".

Mika Zibanejad ripped open the scoring just 54 seconds in, notching his second of the season for an early Rangers lead. A couple of minutes later, Jonny Brodzinski made it 2-0 with his first of the season, giving New York a two-goal lead in that many minutes. Reilly Smith's second of the season made it 3-0, with his tally being a solo effort, unlike Zibanejad's and Brodzinski's. Filip Chytil made it 4-0 with a PPG at the 11:05 mark before the Canadiens eventually broke the shutout bid courtesy of captain Nick Suzuki (1) at the 12:52 mark. Suzuki would score another goal at the start of the second period on a Montreal power play, but it was too little too late, as the Rangers broke things open starting in the middle frame.

Braden Schneider made it 5-2 at the 8:57 mark of period 2, which ended up being the only other tally in the middle 20 minutes. In the third period, Chytil notched his third of the season on another Rangers power play to make it 6-2, and then just 38 seconds later, Kaapo Kakko's first of the season topped off a seven-goal outing for the Rangers. New York outshot Montreal by a total of 45-23 while going one-to-three on the man advantage, just like the Canadiens. Oddly enough, Montreal had considerably more PIM than New York, totaling 25 while the Rangers only had 15, five of which came from a fighting major involving veteran Jacob Trouba when he dropped the gloves with the Canadiens' Mike Matheson, who ended up with a 10 minute game misconduct afterwards.

Filip Chytil earned the first star of the game and the Rangers' locker room victory hat with his two goals and an assist for a three-point night for the young center, a welcome accomplishment after missing much time last season due to injury. The way Chytil and the rest of the Rangers offense played, though, could've meant a hat trick for Chytil if he had only gotten a bit more time, perhaps!

Though, New York was still dominant from start to finish, though, leading 4-1 after just the first 20 minutes of regulation, and that was most likely before they capitalized on Montreal's 23 total giveaways, of which they had 16 of their own and specifically six takeaways to the Canadiens' four.

The Rangers' next contest sees them head back to Madison Square Garden to duel with the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers in a highly anticipated ECF rematch this Thursday evening at 7 p.m. New York now has a 5-0-1 record on the season, and they sit tied for first overall in the league standings, pending other game results tonight. One thing is for sure, however, the New York Rangers are already proving that just six games into the regular season, they are not an Eastern Conference team to be messed with.

Fellow Eastern Conference juggernauts, beware!