10 p.m. start times, specifically on a weekday are the absolute worst so to anyone who stayed up for the entire game, power to you. For those of you who had to miss the action, the Rangers picked up their third win in a row where they put up six goals on their opponent as well as their sixth win in a row. At the end of the day, a win is a win is a win. At this stage in the season, getting two points is all that matters and even as the season goes on, all that matters is finding ways to win. That being said, it wasn’t the best all around game on the Rangers part. They were outshot by the Canucks 29-28, completely dismantled in the face-off circle, ineffective on their lone power play chance and went 50% on the penalty kill. Some of the goals Igor let in weren’t great, defensively the team was a little rough at times but again, the important thing is they got the two points and continue riding this hot streak.
It was certainly an eventful first period as the Canucks wasted no time getting on the board. Dakota Joshua took a shot at a loose puck in the midst of a scrum in front of the net that ended up going off of Curtis Lazar to make it a 1-0 game. Thankfully, the Rangers didn’t take long to get on the board themselves as a minute later, Mika Zibanejad did his classic cut to the side and let a shot go move that welcomed Arturs Silovs to the National Hockey League. A minute after that, Artemi Panarin would put another shot past the rookie goaltender to give the Rangers a brief lead in the midway point of the first period.
Alexis Lafreniere would get called for hooking Conor Garland which gave the Canucks their first power play of the night. JT Miller took a one timer at the hash mark off a feed from Elias Pettersson that took a weird bounce off the top of the side of his leg pad and found the back of the net. Weird angle on the power play, what are ya gonna do? At first glance, it appeared that Niko Mikkola found his first goal as a New York Ranger but it would later be credited to Artemi Panarin as it may have tipped-in off his stick in front of the net. Regardless of who it was, the Rangers now had a 3-2 lead to take into the second period.
Another eventful period, this time with three goals and a pair of penalties. Chris Kreider wasted no time finishing on a BEAUTIFUL passing play between Zibanejad and Tarasenko to make it a 4-2. Exactly how you draw it up, tic-tac-toe to the back of the net, perfectly executed. As we approached the midway point of the game, Niko Mikkola collected another two minutes in penalty time for holding Conor Garland. While the Canucks technically wouldn’t convert on the man-advantage, Garland did tuck away a backhander not long after the team’s returned to even strength to cut the Rangers lead in half. The Rangers had one look on the power play towards the end of the period but just couldn’t capitalize.
As they did in their first meeting on the year just last week, the Canucks kept hanging around in this one, despite the Rangers seemingly having control of the game on the scoreboard. K’Andre Miller would increase the Rangers lead once more in the latter part of the period as he let a nice shot go from the point through lots of traffic in front for his sixth of the season. The Rangers took a 5-3 lead to the third but as time went on, the Canucks seemed to increase their resistance. Andrei Kuzmenko would collect his 23rd goal of the season nine minutes into the third to bring his team within one and Zibanejad would close things out with an empty netter.
Not the worst game in the world to miss if you opted to keep up with your sleep schedule but in what’s been a theme as of late, Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad are heating up at the perfect time. The fact that the Rangers have been getting such big contributions from Filip Chytil and others as of late and have now added Vladimir Tarasenko to the equation and are now getting consistent goals from those two? This is a dangerous team on a very hot streak. While the team didn’t look great in other areas, especially defensively, I wouldn’t think of it as anything to really worry about, at least right now. There’s no question they need to be better, especially against team’s that aren’t the Canucks but given where the Rangers are; as long as they’re getting points and show up for the big matchups, there’s no reason to lose sleep over sloppy showings with bottom ranked teams.
The Rangers are back at it Friday Night as they kick off a back to back in Alberta with the Oilers and Flames. They’ll certainly need to be better defensively against the Oilers who are fighting for ground in the Pacific Division. Not only that but the Rangers should hopefully have a sour taste in their mouth from their last meeting as it was one of their worst blown games in that bad stretch of losses before things got good again.
Chris Feldman
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