Tied at 79
Rangers Get Two Points In Overtime Win
Photo: The New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens are tied with 79 points (Montreal has 1 game in hand)
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN—Before the Rangers faced off against the Minnesota Wild in Wednesday night’s game for a chance to tie the Montreal Canadiens for the final wildcard spot—the blueshirts organization honored Will Cuylle with the Stephen MacDonald award, for his extra effort throughout this season.
The second year player has scored 18 goals and added 21 assists, but it’s his gritty play that has defined him all year. Cuylle is on pace to set the New York Rangers franchise record for hits in a single season, he has 275 hits.
GAME NOTES
Through the first nine minutes of the period, the Rangers took control over game play. Not only did New York outshoot and out-hustle the Wild to every puck, but they were able to sustain good forecheck pressure.
But then at 8:15 of the period, Alexis Lafreniere took a very bad penalty as he interfered with Ryan Hartman, who was trying to chase after the puck on a dump in to the Rangers zone. The poor decision making by Lafreniere stunted the momentum the Rangers had built through the period, but more importantly it led to a power play goal and took the MSG crowd out of the game.
On the power play, Gustav Nyquist scored his 10th of the season for the Wild to give the Wild the 1-0 lead with exactly 11 minutes to play in the period.
Then around three minutes later, the Rangers finally bounced back. At 12:45 of the period, Braden Schneider was able to knock home a wide open rebound shot after Filip Gustavsson made an initial save off a shot by Urho Vaakaneinen. Gustavsson didn’t see Scheider sneaking down from the blue line, as he had kicked the puck out wide to his right.
At 15:00 even, the Rangers gave up another goal. This time to Brock Faber, who scored to give the Wild a 2-1 lead going into the locker room despite the Rangers outshooting Minnesota 18-7 in the first.
Thankfully, things got a lot better for New York in the second, when K’Andre Miler scored his 7th of the year off a pass from JT Miller. And then Chris Kreider took full advantage of a turn over by Declan Chisholm right inside the crease. Kreider scored his 20th goal of the season with a backhand shot to give the Rangers their first lead in the game 3-2.
But the Rangers continued to turn the puck over. While on one of their four power chances in the game, New York gave the puck up and then allowed Marcus Johansson to score a shorthanded goal with just over 10 minutes to play in the period.
With the game tied at 3-3 once again, Artemi Panarin scored his team leading 34th of the year unassisted with just 1:04 left in the second period.
Going into the third period, all the Rangers needed to do was play flawless hockey and they would secure two more points in the standings and slip into a temporary tie with the Canadiens for the final wildcard spot.
But that hope didn’t last very long, when the Rangers allowed the Wild to tie the game up only 22 seconds into the final period. On the goal, Marco Rossi ended up tipping the puck into the net after Igor Shesterkin made an unreal save off Matt Boldy’s shot from close range.
And that’s where the two teams ended regulation.
In the game, New York had four total power play chances, including a 5 on 3 man advantage in the third, but were unable to score on any of the man advantages.
Then in the overtime period, JT Miller won the initial face off, but then quickly skated over to the bench, so Vincent Trocheck could jump on the ice.
As the Rangers moved up ice with the puck, K’Andre Miller passed the puck to Panarin, who then found Trocheck for his 22nd goal of the year and the 5-4 overtime victory.
GAME ANALYSIS
During one of the intermissions of the game, MSG Analyst Steve Valiquette said it best, “there are more turnovers in this game than a Sara Lee kitchen.” And he couldn’t have been more accurate about that.
The Rangers gave the puck away 16 times, meanwhile Minnesota turned the puck over a whopping 19 times in the game.
Given the sheer amount of turnovers and the fact New York was 0-4 on the power play, they were very lucky to get the two extra points in the standings. But a win’s a win.
On a side note, Gabe Perreault made his NHL debut for the Rangers after playing his final game for Boston College on Sunday night. BC had lost their Frozen Four bid to Denver in the NCAA Manchester Regional Final, despite being ranked #1 throughout the season.
New York finished last night’s game with 39 total shots on net, 24 hits, 13 blocked shots and even dominated at the faceoff circle winning 66.7% of the draws. The problem is—the Rangers have two big problems.
One, they seem to be turning the puck over way too much in 60 minutes of play and second, the Rangers have virtually no power play to speak of. And that does not bode well down the stretch.
GAME STATS
Gabe Perreault 3 shots (13:38 TOI), 2 giveaways
Will Cuylle 1 shot, 2 blocks, 3 hits
Artemi Panarin 1 goal, 2 assists, 7 shots
JT Miller 1 assist, 2 shots, 1 block, 2 hits
NEXT GAME
Before we get into the Rangers next game, its important to note that the Canadiens are scheduled to play the Boston Bruins tonight. If the Bruins can beat Montreal, that means New York and Montreal will be officially tied for the final wildcard spot with only 7 games to play in the regular season.
Which makes the Rangers next game even more important.
And guess who they play?
That’s right their Hudson River rivals, the New Jersey Devils, in a Saturday afternoon matchup at The Rock. Although the Devils don’t really have anything to play for since they have 87 points and look like they have completely secured third place in the Metropolitan Division, this is still a rivalry game between the Rangers and Devils.
That means there is no love-loss between these two teams and if the pressure for the Rangers to win wasn’t enough—there will be an electric playoff atmosphere in Newark.
Just in case, the point was missed. The Rangers desperately need to beat the Devils on Saturday.
So who will be the hero the blueshirts need? Can Brennan Othmann finally score his first NHL goal? Or will the Devils spoil the party for the blueshirts?
If you’re not excited for hockey at this point, someone needs to check your pulse.