In Newark, the New York Rangers were playing their second straight afternoon contest.
After surrendering a two-goal lead to the Boston Bruins in a 3-2 OT loss on Friday, the Blueshirts took out the Devils, 4-0 on Saturday.
Alexandar Georgiev made 33 saves to get his first shutout of the season.
“It was a pretty good game for us,” Georgiev said. “We got the lead early. We played a pretty simple game. We didn’t let them have too much. We had quite a bit of penalties today but at the same time guys played great (on the) PK today.”
It was anything but perfect. However, the Rangers did strike once on the power play and twice for shorthanded goals.
The imperfection was the eight man advantages the Rangers handed to New Jersey.
Adam Fox scored a power-play off a nifty pass from Kaapo Kakko.The play was reminiscent of a feed from Fox to Mike Zibanejad on Saturday.
“[Georgiev] was big; he stood tall,” Rangers coach David Quinn said. “When you look at it, 4-0 and you kill that many penalties, your goalie needs to be good and he was good when he needed to be.
“In the first period we did a lot of good things but unfortunately some turnovers ignited some of their opportunities on the rush, but Georgie had a big part in this win, that’s for sure.”
Zibanejad and Jesper Fast scored shorthanded for New York.
“It was basically a 2-on-2, and they’re kind of coming at us and it’s a bad gap,” Zibanejad said. “You see an opportunity and why not? It’s got to be the right time obviously. I got a great pass from Brendan.”
The Rangers are 4-0-1 in their last five.
\”We stayed with our structure and didn’t give them that many chances,” Zibanejad said. “We stayed compact and really made it hard for them to get the Grade-A chances.”
The Devils dropped to 9-12-4.
“Our breakouts (on the power play) were a little disorganized,” Devils left wing Taylor Hall said. “When we did get shots, it felt like the goalie saw it. We had some zone time but probably not as many attempts and shots from in-tight as you’d want. You get two shorties scored on you, you’re not going to win at all, so that’s your game story. It was a terrible performance on the power play.”
Brady Skjei hit an empty net with a shot from the Hackensack River for the final.
[WATCH: All Rangers vs. Devils highlights]
Mackenzie Blackwood made 19 saves in the loss.
“We just couldn’t capitalize on chances and couldn’t keep the puck out of our net on a few, too,” Blackwood said. “They were a little sharper on their execution.”
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