Corey Crawford had 31 saves in win over Rangers – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
NEW YORK – Last night was a game of special teams and the Chicago Blackhawks used it to their advantage. Despite being outshot 34 to 20, the Blackhawks took down the New York Rangers 5-3 at Madison Square Garden. Corey Crawford got the Hawks their 38th win of the year on 31 saves while the red hot Henrik Lundqvist had a lousy 15 save performance, giving up 4 goals before Chicago iced the game with an empty net goal.
“You just have to forget it,” Lundqvist said. “It doesn’t matter win or lose, you move on and you start over tomorrow. I think you analyze this one quickly. I thought we played a really strong game, it’s just their power play killed us. Five-on-5, our power play, it was really good.”
He’t not wrong.
Three of the Blackhawks goals were on the power-play. One of them was on an empty net. Chicago only had one even strength goal, a silver lining for the recently streaking Rangers.
But the real story of last nights tilt was the 24-year old undrafted Artemi Panarin, who notched his first career NHL hat trick last night. He never played in North America before the fall.
Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews made post game comments on the youngster, saying “He’s been good for us this year. Tonight, he scored a big goal with the second unit that went out for the power play. He wants to score and when he finally gets a few here tonight, he plays with so much more confidence and energy. When he goes out there, things happen every single shift. You saw that again tonight.”
Panarin currently leads all rookie’s in goals, assists and points.
The Rangers regulation loss at home was their first since December 20th.
The Blackhawks will take to the outdoors for their next game, playing the Minnesota Wild in the 2016 Stadium Series match at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Sunday at 3:30 on NBC.
The Rangers play a second of back-to-back game tonight against the Maple Leafs in Toronto at 7:30pm.
You must be logged in to post a comment.