Even playing without their best defenseman, one of their top centers and their No. 1 goalie, the Rangers topped the Detroit Red Wings, 5-3, Tuesday night in front of a sellout crowd at Madison Square Garden.
Coming off a shootout loss in Minnesota and missing Adam Fox, Filip Chytil and Igor Shesterkin, the Rangers improved to 9-2-1 by winning a matchup of Original Six teams. The Rangers have tallied points in eight straight games.
Vincent Trocheck scored twice and Chris Kreider, Artemi Panarin and Will Cullye added goals. Backup goalie Jonathan Quick got the win in his first start at the Garden as Detroit fell to 7-5-1.
The Rangers matched a season-high by scoring five goals, all before the end of the second period, and looked like they’d coast the rest of the way. The Red Wings, however, upped their game in the third period to draw close.
Here are the main takeaways:
-The Blueshirts seemed to blow the game open by scoring four times within a span of 6:39 in the second period after killing an early Detroit power play. Kreider, the master of the tip-in, did it again, redirecting a shot by Erik Gustafsson at the 7:31 mark. It was Kreider’s ninth goal of the season and his sixth power-play goal. His six PP goals are tops in the NHL. Forty-three seconds later, Trocheck scored his second goal of the game, a power-play tally, taking a pass from Mika Zibanejad in front of the net and sniping the puck past goalie Ville Husso.
Not even three minutes later, Alexis Lafreniere vied for a puck behind the Detroit net with Olli Maatta, won and slipped the disk to Panarin lurking in front. Panarin scored his seventh goal of the season. Finally, at the 14:10 mark of the period, Cullye tipped in a shot by Zac Jones for a 5-0 lead.
– Panarin was also credited with an assist on Kreider’s goal. He has at least one point in 12 consecutive games to start the season, two shy of Rod Gilbert’s record of 14 straight games to start a season in 1972-73. Panarin’s point streak also ties the second-longest of his career. He has seven multi-point games and entered Tuesday with the second-most multi-point games in the league.
-The Rangers mostly dominated the first period, too, outshooting Detroit, 13-5, and taking a quick 1-0 lead on Trocheck’s second goal of the season, this one off the rush. Trocheck skated in on Husso’s left and flicked a wrist shot past the goalie with just 1:40 elapsed in the game. The Red Wings struggled to get into their offensive zone, particularly early in the period and had only one shot on goal for more than half of the first period. The Rangers, who came into the game with the NHL’s 10th-ranked penalty-killing unit, squelched two Wings’ power plays in the first. Late in the period, Daniel Sprong nearly scored for Detroit, though, hitting Quick’s shoulder and drawing iron, but the puck did not go in.
– Overall, the Rangers stopped Detroit’s power-play six times, not allowing a goal on the penalty-kill.
– In the third period, however, things got considerably less comfortable for the Rangers, as Detroit scored three times to make the game competitive again and wreck Quick’s shutout bid. The Red Wings scored two even-strength goals in a 20-second span near the midway point of the period cutting the Ranger lead to 5-2. Michael Rasumussen fired a turnaround shot past Quick with 12:05 remaining and then Klim Kotin tallied on a backhand shot with 11:45 remaining. Former Ranger Andrew Copp added a goal with 6:11 left in the game to pull Detroit within two goals.
