Few New York Rangers would have considered a tight match with the Tampa Bay Lightning Thursday. Most might have been forgive for having predicted a goal outburst from the Bolts.
Instead, the Rangers’ J.T. Miller pulled a power move down the right wing from the neural zone and drove the net went wide and flung the puck high for the game-winner in extra time.
The Rangers have won two straight for the first time this season.
“This was probably the most full game we played from start of the game to the end,” Rangers captain Ryan McDonagh said. “This is definitely something that we can fall back on to when things aren’t going our way. We have to look to continue to keep that effort when we play [the Florida Panthers on Saturday].”
Henrik Lundqvist made 27 saves to pick up the win and a strong effort.
Chris Kreider scored on a 3-on-1 break for the Rangers and drilled the puck home off a feed from Mika Zibanejad.
“We deserved to win, we played a real strong game from the start to the finish,” Rangers head coach Alain Vigneault said. “Our defensive game as a whole was solid. Our structure was good. We made a couple of nice plays with the puck.”
Yanni Gourde scored a shorthanded goal in the second period to tie the score.
“I think we needed more shots on goal,” Gourde said. “We were able to control our offense by shooting the puck, in some sequences we did that. But we were trying to be too fancy.”
The Rangers moved to 5-7-2 with the win and seemed to have shaken some of the dreadful performance memories after the win.
“Right now Tampa is the best team in the league with St. Louis. They were playing some solid hockey and scoring a lot of goals. This is just one game on the road against a real good team. We’ve got to move on, focus on the next game and get ready for it,” Vigneault said after the win.
Lundqvist had the secondary assist on the game-winner by Miller.
[WATCH: All Rangers vs. Lightning highlights]
Andrei Vasilevskiy made saves in taking the loss.
“[Vasilevskiy] clearly got us that point, no question about that,” Bolts head coach Jon Cooper said. “He’s been doing that all year for us. That’s why he’s been our MVP.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.