The Ranger cross another one off the list as they now have seven games remaining in the regular season after blanking the Flyers 4-0. Despite a bit of a sloppy start, the Rangers took control of the game and absolutely dominated the Flyers to the point where they were just going through the motions, chewing time off the clock to come out on top of this one. This is exactly the kind of effort you want from the Rangers in these final two weeks, nothing fancy, just go through the motions, do what you can to win and give your guys a well-deserved rest heading into the postseason.
Head Coach Gerard Gallant has already begun to implement a resting schedule for his guys as Alexis Lafreniere got the night off yesterday. While he wouldn’t necessarily have been my first choice of giving a day off to, it does make sense when you consider how he has yet to play a full 82 game season. Besides, if you’re going to give your core guys nights off you have to start somewhere. Rangers fans should be totally fine with Lafreniere having the night off and Gallant said to expect more of that from other players in the coming games.
As for the rest of last night, the Flyers had the hop out of the gate but the tide quickly turned to the Rangers. Halfway through the first period, after hitting a post earlier, Kaapo Kakko ripped one past Felix Sandstrom for his first goal after missing 31 games with a wrist injury. As for the rest of the period, the Rangers had a 5-on-3 opportunity where the power play just couldn’t find the back of the net. Kreider would take a coincidentally minor penalty after getting jumped by Scott Laughton as the games tension began to rise.
The second period would again be all Rangers despite an early power play opportunity for Philadelphia. The penalty killers went to work and would kill off K’Andre Miller’s holding penalty to get back to even strength. Approaching the halfway point of the period, Kaapo Kakko would find the back of the net once again off a wrist shot to give the Blueshirts a 2-0 lead. Natural hatty alert?! Artemi Panarin would put away a puck sitting on the back door for his 22nd of the season to increase the Rangers lead by three.
From the end of the second to the final seconds of the game, the Rangers held onto the puck, slowing the game down every chance they had. Lot of playing keep away, lot of getting the red line and dumping it, going through the motions and preserving their energy as much as possible. The game continued getting chippy at times, so much so that the refs sent Barclay Goodrow and Travis Konecny to the locker room with just under two minutes to go. The Flyers tried getting on the board by pulling Sandstrom but Andrew Copp took advantage of the empty net, closing this one out at 4-0.
While it wasn’t an overly challenging effort for the Rangers, Alexandar Georgiev certainly deserves praise and credit, stopping all 28 of Philadelphia’s shots. He was tested early as the Flyers had five shots in the first couple minutes of the game and Georgiev came up big for all of them. Kaapo Kakko had himself an amazing night as well and you have to hope that this is finally his moment and he is one hot streak from taking off, it’s absolutely the ideal time for it to happen.
The Rangers will have two days off before hosting the Red Wings for kids day at the Garden, in a Saturday matinee original six match-up. As mentioned at the top, Gallant said we can expect more guys getting rests in the coming days so it’ll be interesting to see who gets the night off for the Rangers and if it’ll be more than one. It would make sense for the Rangers to keep as close to a full lineup as they can just to ensure they lock down home ice advantage in that second place position.
Chris Feldman
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