Head coach John Tortorella may not be considering tonight’s win a “measuring stick” game, but I sure as hell am. The New York Rangers showed guts, determination and skill tonight, and in the process overcame the best team in hockey right now. The Rangers made a statement tonight, and that statement is that they plan on competing this season. This team is no joke, and they showed the league why with this win.
Just as Saturday’s matinee against the Philadelphia Flyers did, tonight’s tilt also began with some fisticuffs to get the ball rolling early. Just 16 seconds in, Sean Avery dropped the mitts with Tyler Kennedy to engage in what turned out to be more of a wrestling match than anything. Both players were given two minutes for roughing, but upon exiting the sin bin, they met up at center ice for the second time and this time really went at it. So just as we saw against Philadelphia, the Rangers and Pens quickly reminded themselves of their rivalry in their first meeting of the season.
The game started with a nice back-and-forth pace to it, with both clubs getting prime scoring opportunities and both goaltenders standing tall. The officials, however, then began to take control with a couple of weak calls on the Rangers that had head coach John Tortorella absolutely livid on the bench. On their third consecutive powerplay, the Penguins finally opened the scoring when James Neal scored form the slot at 17:56.
In the second period, not only did the Rangers respond to just Neal’s goal, but they also scored three additional to take a 4-1 lead. First it was Ryan Callahan, on the powerplay, tapping in a beautiful pass by Marian Gaborik that followed several swift moves to maneuver through the slot. That would tie the game for the moment, but things were about to explode.
Carl Hagelin made a pretty play at 14:09 that left the puck sitting in the slot for John Mitchell, who quickly wristed his first goal as a Ranger past Marc-Andre Fleury to give the Blueshirts a 2-1 lead. Hagelin absolutely tore through the offensive zone with his speed to set this goal up, so he deserves most of the credit even though it was Mitchell who finished the play. Nonetheless, both of these players have been fantastic since being recalled.
At 15:39, Ruslan Fedotenko found Brad Richards wide open coming down the middle, and Richards ripped a wrister over Fleury’s glove for his ninth goal of the season to put New York up, 3-1. That was then followed by a powerplay goal by Marian Gaborik at 18:26 to make it 4-1. At the time of the goal, I said on Twitter that Gabby’s tally was huge. Well, you eventually saw why by the end of the night.
Evgeni Malkin buried a rebound before the end of the second period to cut the Rangers’ lead to 4-2 and then Pascal Dupuis scored again for the Penguins to open the third period, and just like that a 4-1 lead became 4-3 for the Blueshirts. At this point, though, the Penguins killed their own chances of coming back in the game by taking three consecutive penalties.
As a result, the Rangers were given over five minutes worth of powerplay time (that they didn’t capitalize on), including two 5-on-3s, which killed plenty of time off the clock. By the time the Pens had killed off all of the penalties, they didn’t have enough time to establish sustained offensive pressure in order to get the needed goal to tie the game.
In a win like this, the first player you obviously have to turn to is your goaltender. Henrik Lundqvist had to make some very tough saves tonight, as we expected going in, and he was up for the challenge as usual. He even got into the physical aspect of tonight’s contest when throwing some rights to the head of Joe Vitale. I think the fire in Hank inspires the rest of the team, so sometimes it’s good for him to let out some steam.
Lundqvist only faced 27 shots tonight, and this is where the defense comes in. Ryan McDonagh and Dan Girardi did a marvelous job of defending the Sidney Crosby line, and shutting down the Pens’ top powerplay unit as well. They forced Pittsburgh to carry the puck outside, which made it harder to create a ruckus in front of Lundqvist as the Pens would’ve liked.
Also, Brad Richards completely dominated Crosby in the faceoff circle tonight. Crosby has become one of the better centermen in the league in the dot, but Richards owned him tonight and believe it or not, that actually does make a big difference in the grand scheme of things.
While talking about Richards, another 3-point night for him with a goal and two assists tonight. Ryan Callahan and Marian Gaborik also had two points tonight as well. Notice a trend? The Rangers’ top players came prepared to win tonight and it showed. When you play a team like the Penguins, you need everyone contributing, but it’s important that your standout players do a little more than the rest of the squad. That was the case for New York tonight.
As I said it would be in the pregame, this win over the Pittsburgh Penguins makes a big statement for the Rangers. They’ve now won 10 of their last 12, they are basically unbeatable at home and they’ve now moved up to fourth place in the Eastern Conference. In fact, they are only three points behind the Penguins with four games at hand.
This team means business, folks.