In Detroit, the New York Rangers won a game they had no business succeeding in.
On Tuesday night, the Rangers were nearly caught looking past the Red Wings, and just barely overcome the soft goaltending of Alexander Georgiev.
Andrew Copp scored in extra time to give the Rangers a 5-4 lead.
Artemi Panarin took a pass from Copp below the blue line, and then fed Copp streaking down the slot, Panarin delivered the pass to his stick and the winner.
“I was surprised when I saw him at the back door,” Panarin said. “He has good speed and I was able to get him the puck.”
Panarin scored in regulation, his goal tied the game, 3-3, at the time.
“This was huge,” Georgiev (22 saves) said. “It wasn’t the best game for me, but the guys kept scoring every time [the Red Wings] got the lead.”
Chris Kreider scored his 46the of the season, and 24th power play goal in the third period to tie the 4-4, in the third.
“It wasn’t pretty, but the bottom line is that we got two points and we move on,” New York coach Gerard Gallant said. “We kept ourselves close all night and we got the result in the end.”
It wasn’t pretty because Georgiev was soft on at least two of the Red Wings’ goals.
Ryan Reaves scored his third of the season to give the Rangers their only lead in regulation, 1-0.
Detroit responded with goals from Michael Rasmussen and Jakub Vrana for a 2-1 lead in the first period.
“We have to find a way to kill that last penalty, that’s just the reality of this league,” Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said. “It didn’t look like they could get anything past [Nedeljkovic] late in the game, but they got one off a skate and one off a missed assignment in overtime.”
Filip Chytil tied the game, 2-2, before the end of the period.
The Sabres took a 3-2 lead off a stoppable shot from Tyler Bertuzzi.
“We’ve had a lot of games like this, and we’ve turned a lot of them back to our side,” Panarin said. “But we can’t always do that, so we have to be better than this.”
After Panarin tied it again, Adam Erne put the Red Wings up, 4-3, early in the third.
Alex Nedeljkovic made 29 saves in the Reed Wings loss.
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