The sweep of the NHL schedule from Monday night starts in Manhattan where the New York Rangers came out of the second intermission with a chip on their shoulders and fired 21 shots on the Florida Panthers net and Roberto Luongo and scored three goals in a 6-3 win.
Dan Boyle, Mats Zuccarello and Rick Nash scored in the third with Bayle’s deflected shot the game-winner.
“The only thing I could think of on Boyle’s goal was why didn’t that happen for us last year [when Mitchell was a member of the Stanley Cup champion Los Angeles Kings],” Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said. “Hockey is a funny game sometimes. There were a lot of deflections; some nights you have pucks go in like this.”
Zuccarello’s marker was his first in 11 games for New York.
“I’m more of a passer so I don’t really care who scores,” Zuccarello said. “I can feel the pressure from you guys and everyone around to score some goals so obviously I’d like to score some more goals as well.”
Nash had two goals including a shortie in the first period, his 30th and 31st of the year.
“It’s a nice accomplishment [to score 30 goals],” Nash said. “It just shows how good my linemates are and how good the team is doing. Personal success always comes after team success.”
Henrik Lundqvist made 33 saves for the win.
“We all felt like we had more to give after the second period [and the game tied 3-3],” Lundqvist said. “When we played with our speed and really focused on our passing, we gave them a lot of trouble and really created a lot of chances and that’s something we wanted to do in the third.”
For the Panthers, it was another slow start to a game and it cost them.
“We battled back but again it’s not enough,” Panthers forward Nick Bjugstad said. “We have to be mentally prepared for a whole game and not a few periods. That’s what happens in this League if you’re not prepared for a full game; it was a tough loss.
“Every game is a must-win at this point. It’s not in our favor losing a game like that but can’t dwell too much on it.”
The slow start put them in a hole but the third period buried them.
“We have to have an effort for 60 minutes and that’s not what we’re doing right now,” Panthers forward Jonathan Huberdeau said. “We didn’t play bad; we were on them in the second period so why not do that again in the third?”
In San Jose, the Edmonton Oilers toughed out a 5-4 win over the Sharks after a marathon, 13-round shootout. Rob Klinkhammer scored the game-winner against Antti Niemi.
“That was a good character win,” Klinkhammer said after his first career shootout attempt. “We still have stuff to clean up. We shouldn’t have let them back into the game. But we stuck with it and got the two points. We showed a lot of resiliency.”
Klinkhammer thought himself an unlikely hero.
“I was laughing the whole time,” Klinkhammer said of the shootout. “I thought it was hilarious. And then I got the call and got lucky enough to get it into the net. I think we ran out of forwards so I had go. That was my first [shootout attempt] in the NHL, so I’m 1-for-1.”
It was a point for the Sharks in the loss but it was a bad loss after three straight big wins.
“It’s tough. I wish we could explain it,” Sharks forward Logan Couture said. “If we all knew the reasons why, then it wouldn’t happen. We fought back, we gave ourselves a chance for two points. (Niemi) played great in that shootout. We have to find a way to get one by him earlier in that shootout and we get two points and get an ugly win. We have to get better. We’re facing a Calgary team in our next game [on Wednesday] that’s going to be hungry and they’re right behind us.”
It was a game of bad bounces and deflections but the effort was not there for the Sharks.
“I thought we got outworked in the second period and probably out-emotioned,” Sharks coach Todd McLellan said. “We were flat. We didn’t have the [emotion] that it takes to win. It showed up in the third again when we were aggressive and assertive. We can’t be all over the map. We had one line I thought tonight that played well, one line. We had too many passengers. It’s what you get when you don’t come and play as a full team.”
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