How many times does a team spend money in free agency and say, ‘wow, that was worth it’?
The New York Rangers can say that this season.
Chris Kreider had a goal in Rangers’ win over Islanders – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
On Monday night Artemi Panarin potted two goals and added three assists to tie a career high, five-point effort, in a 6-2 win over the New York Islanders at Madison Square Garden.
“Every now and then he one-ups himself, and he did that again tonight,” Rangers coach David Quinn said. “We talked about it when we signed him over the summer, everybody stands a little bit taller, they put their chests out a little further and they have a little more swagger, but I think he’s given us a lot more than that.”
Panarin is third in the league in scoring with 26 goals.
Alexandar Georgiev made 32 saves in the win.
“If we want to achieve our goal we can’t let many nights slip through our fingers,” Quinn said. “That doesn’t mean you’re going to win every night, but you want to give yourself a chance to win every night, and lately we’ve been doing a better job of that.”
Jordan Eberle and Brock Nelson scored for the Isles who opened and closed the scoring in the game.
Eberle scored just 18 seconds into the match when no one seemed to be able to control the puck on clean ice in the Rangers’ zone.
“The puck management was terrible,” Islanders coach Barry Trotz said. “Their top guys were better than some of our top guys. I thought our level of battle wasn’t where I expected it to be tonight. We got what we deserved.”
Jesper Fast and Adam Fox and three and two points respectively, with a goal each.
It didn’t take long for the old, festering hate between the two franchises to come out. With 2:13 gone, one brawl broke out, and a second was started before the stoppage in play had been ended. Over the game, the Rangers were assessed 50 PIM.
“Those definitely gave us a little jolt,” Rangers’ Jacob Trouba said.
Chris Kreider deflected a high shot for a goal and Trouba scored with a slap shot from the blue line.
“We turned some pucks over, they came at us hard, had some pressure, capitalized and we weren’t able to turn it back in our favor even after getting that first one right away,” Nelson said. “We couldn’t stay on them.”
[WATCH: All Islanders vs. Rangers highlights]
Semyon Varlamov made 29 saves on 35 shots. He was given the hook after the sixth goal.
“He had five points and he could have probably had eight points in terms of the chances they were creating,” Trotz said of Panarin. “Just didn’t have an answer for it.”
Thomas Greiss made one save in a mop up role.
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