In New York, the Rangers responded to an ugly brace of losses on Sunday with a 4-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings.
The win erased, for the time being, a brutal 4-0 loss to the Washington Capitals on Saturday night.
Jonathan Quick got the start against his former team, and made 25 saves for the win.
“Yeah, it’s special, right,” Quick said. “It’s a game that this summer when the schedule comes out, you know when we’re playing them. The effort from the guys in front of me, slowing them down in the neutral zone and blocking shots; the way we played defensively, it was tremendous.”
It was Quick’s first ever game against the Kings.
“I thought it was fantastic,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. “For him to have the success he’s had with one organization and then to come in here and play as well as he has for us and now to see that matchup against his old team, everybody was pumped about that and the way he played throughout the entire game.”
Following a quiet, scoreless opening stanza, the Rangers’ Mika Zibanejad scored off the power play at 8:27 of the middle frame.
Vincent Trocheck and Artemi Panarin set up the goal from the left circle with a tic-tac-toe passing play.
Jimmy Vesey extended the lad to 2-0 on a seemingly easy move to the crease after Nick Bonino lassoed the puck out of mid air and passed to Vesey headed to the slot.
“There was not a lot of room the first period to do anything,” Laviolette said. “I think we just stuck with it and eventually generated some good chances in the second period and continued to push in the third. For me, just a really good start to finish game.”
The goal came at at 17:27 of the second.
The Rangers improved to 19-6-1.
Phillip Danault was the lone striker for the Kings, his power play goal at 6:37 of the third period cut the deficit to 2-1 for LA.
“A lot of things have been going our way, so it’s nice to have a little adversity,” Los Angeles’ Mikey Anderson said. “We’ve got faith in our leaders, the guys that have been here a long, long time. They right the ship. I don’t think there is going to be any sense of panic or anything in the group. We trust what we have here. We trust what we’re doing. Get back in L.A. and get back to working, figure some things out.”
New York’s Jonny Brodzinski hit off a power play at at 11:32 to restore the two-goal lead for the Rangers.
Vincent Trocheck had three primary assists for the Rangers.
“There were some negative things creeping into our game,” Trocheck said. “We all knew it and we recognized it, and I think that the biggest thing is just making sure you can spot it whenever it’s coming and get to it quickly. I thought we had a really good bounce back game tonight against a really good hockey team.”
Will Cuylle capped the game’s scoring at 15:24 when he collected his rebound of a shot to push the Rangers lead to 4-1, and the final count.
“I don’t think we played poorly,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said. “I just don’t think we played a game that allowed us to have any chance at winning.”
Use CodePHN15 Rangers end two-game skid with strong effort on both ends of the ice
Pheonix Copley made 23 saves in the loss.
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