This one looked easy through 20 minutes f play Wednesday night. The New York Rangers built a 3-1 lead in the first period and then sat back for 40 minutes to hold off the Boston Bruins in a 4-2 win.
In a span of 29 seconds in the opening frame, Jimmy Vesey struck for two garbage goals to help the Rangers take the lead.
“I’ve been trying to have good habits in my game — finishing checks, stopping in front of the net — and I had two pucks just land there for me, but I’ll take them,” Vesey said. “I got a couple of greasy ones tonight and maybe it will take off from here.”
The Rangers got a strong effort from Henrik Lundqvist who made 31 saves for the win as the Rangers improved to 8-7-2.
“We played a really smart game,” Lundqvist said. “We set the tone in the first period, great energy. After they tied the game we raised it to another level and guys made some really big plays for us. The things that really didn’t go our way in the first eight, nine games of the season, I feel like now we are cashing in on that.”
With a tired Bruins defense on the ice early in the game, Pavel Buchnevich used a power move around Zdeno Chara, on the right wing to roof the puck past Tuukka Rask for an early 1-0 lead.
“We are confident. We are starting to win some games. We know close games can go the other way and we’ve been working hard all year long to get us into position to win these types of hockey games. … We have to keep working and keep grabbing points when we are on a roll like this,” the Rangers’ Marc Staal said.
David Pastrnak scored shortly after Buchmevich’s goal.
“We have to prepare for the game and be ready as a team from the first face-off,” Pastrnak said. “The last couple of games we were slow, and we can’t win every game when we let the other team get the first couple of goals.”
Patrice Bergeronscored in the third to tighten the game at 3-2.
“It would be a lot easier on ourselves if we start from the drop of the puck and establish what we’ve been doing in the last 40 minutes for most games,” Bergeron said.
Rick Nash scored an empty netter to close out the game.
Boston had four chances on the power play and came up empty and are on a 1-for-13 skid.
“You want to get results on [the power play] and right now we are not getting them,” Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We needed one on the specialty teams tonight. It certainly would have helped.”
[WATCH: All Bruins vs. Rangers highlights]
Rask made 29 saves in the loss.
“In this league it’s tough to come back. We had a couple of moral victories, or whatever you call them, and we showed that we do have some character and we are willing to fight to the last whistle. We just have to learn quickly here not to put ourselves behind the eight ball,”Cassidy said after the loss.
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