In New York Tuesday night, Kevin Shattenkirk scored the deciding goal for the New York Rangers in a 3-2 shootout win over the Colorado Avalanche.
Shattenkirk also had two assists in the win.
Shattenkirk’s season has been a rough startt and was benched last week.
“Last Thursday was a tough pill to swallow but I think it helped me,” Shattenkirk said. “You get to sit back and analyze the game a little bit. … Getting that assist on the power-play goal, after that, it kind of felt like I was playing my game again.”
Henrik Lundqvist made 31 saves to get the win.
“He (Shattenkirk) shows what a pro is,” Lundqvist said. “Not a lot of guys can respond the way he did. He proved that you sit him outside, he comes back with two really strong games. And that just proves what he’s made of. I’m happy for him. He played great today. … I like when I see guys respond like that.”
The Rangers have been tentative on offense this season, seemingly focused on tight defense.
Tuesday night they continued the tight defense and launched 43 shots including 19 in the first period.
Chris Kreider and Kevin Hayes struck for regulation goals.
“That’s a good team we played. They are fast and they made the playoffs last year and are going to be a playoff team this year as well, probably. It was a great test for us, and I thought there certainly was more of an edge to our game,” Rangers head coach David Quinn said after the game.
Mats Zuccarello added two assists and also scored in the skills competition.
Nathan MacKinnonand Gabriel Landeskog scored for the Avs who dropped to 3-1-2.
“I thought we played pretty good,” MacKinnon said. “We had a lot of chances. I thought we played solid. I mean, we didn’t give them much. They had a lot of shots, but they weren’t very high-quality shots. [Varlamov] played well, on the penalty kill especially.”
[WATCH: All Avalanche vs. Rangers highlights]
Semyon Varlamov made 41 saves in the loss.
“[Varlamov] was at his best on our penalty kill,” Avs head coach Jared Bednar said. “We took five or six penalties, gave up some good looks, a couple seam passes there that he looked really quick on, was making reads. … I thought it was a pretty well-played hockey game. There’s obviously some things we have to clean up on the defensive side of things, but we also did some good things offensively, getting it at the net, coming up with some rebounds. Shootout, you can flip a coin for me how it’s going to turn out.”
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