There was something noticeably different about the New York Rangers on Saturday and although they made it difficult in the third period, they stopped their ugly five-game losing streak with a dramatic victory.
Coming off one of their more physical showings of a disappointing season and their first win in 11 days, the Rangers hope to start going on a hot streak Monday night when they host the New Jersey Devils.
The Rangers were outscored 21-10 in their first five-game losing streak since the end of the 2020-21 season. The skid often featured few power plays and slow starts along with a lack of physicality.
In Saturday’s 4-3 win over the Montreal Canadiens, the Rangers started a five-game homestand by tying a season high with three power-play goals, including the game-winner by Kaapo Kakko with 24 seconds remaining during a four-minute man advantage. New York also held a lead through the opening 20 minutes for the first time since Nov. 9 in Detroit, and its 17 penalty minutes were their second-most all season.
The penalty minutes were the result of a different edge to the Rangers, as struggling defenseman Jacob Trouba fought Josh Anderson 1:58 into the contest along with a full-scale skirmish late in the second period.
Artemi Panarin scored a power-play goal in the first period and set up another when Mika Zibanejad scored late in the second.
“Sometimes when you’re trying to get out of something, that first one you get out of might not be the prettiest, and it wasn’t,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. “But we’ve got to draw on the positives of what we were able to do from the physicality and the start, the fact that we kicked it up, and we came back and won it. The specialty teams factor into it. I think you just pull all those things out of it and you continue to work your way out.”
The Devils held a one-point lead on the Rangers following New York’s 4-3 win in Vancouver on Nov. 19. Now they lead New York by seven points, though they have played four more games.
New Jersey is 11-5-0 in 16 games since dropping four straight Oct. 19-25. During that span, the Devils have been blanked four times and played five one-goal games.
New Jersey is coming off a pair of high-scoring one-goal outings against the Detroit Red Wings and Washington Capitals. After earning a 5-4 win Friday in Detroit, the Devils took a 6-5 loss to the visiting Capitals on Saturday when they allowed a season-high three power-play goals in the final 10-plus minutes of the second period.
The Devils allowed four power-play tallies on nine chances in the back-to-back and opponents are 7-for-24 in the past seven contests. Their struggles against the Capitals occurred before Stefan Noesen scored two power-play goals in the third period.
Nico Hischier and Justin Dowling scored and Jesper Bratt also tallied a tying goal before the Devils allowed two goals in 10 seconds to lose the lead.
“We take a lot of pride in our penalty kill and tonight it arguably cost us the game,” Brett Pesce said. “So, just learn from it and we’ve got a big (game) Monday. And hopefully we can bounce back.”
The Rangers outscored the Devils 17-8 in sweeping all four meetings last season. The last meeting on April 3 featured a combined 166 penalty minutes due to a line brawl two seconds into the contest.
–Field Level Media
