Rangers get another road win, defeat Wild, 3-2

While Madison Square Garden may be a haunted house for the New York Rangers, the road is just fine.

On Saturday, the Rangers built a 3-1 lead after falling behind early 1-0 and then held off the Minnesota Wild for a 3-2 win.

Eric Staal staked the Wild to the early lead with his 24th of the season before they lost

.T. Miller had an assist in win over Wild – file photo by Lewis Bleiman

their fourth straight game.

“It’s tough. This is a tough league,” Staal said. “They’re not easy games every night. … This is a tough stretch for us right now. No one’s going to help us out but us. We’ve got to make sure that we come to play tomorrow [against the Winnipeg Jets] and get after a win and get a good vibe going again.”

Antti Raanta made 25 saves to get the win for New York who improved to 45-24-3.

The win came a night after a shootout loss to the Florida Panthers at MSG.

“People wonder why we don’t win at home and why we win all the road games,” New York’s  J.T. Miller said. “We try to play every game the same. It’s a constant theme. We definitely have more jump in our step on the road this year so far.”

Brady Skjei. Oscar Lindberg and Jimmy Vesey scored for the Rangers to erase the early deficit.

“There’s no doubt that we played a good game in a real tough building,” Rangers head coach Alain Vigneault said. “[We] got in late last night and I thought it was a real gutsy performance by our group here. … We got some good looks, and when we had a few breakdowns, Antti made some good saves.”

Matt Dumba closed the gap to 3-2 early in the third but Raanta closed the door the rest of the way.

“You’re just trying to focus on the next shot,” Raanta said. “You don’t start thinking too much ahead of yourself. If you lose your control against these kind of teams they will use that, so I was just trying to concentrate on the next shot and it worked out really good today. The whole team was playing great in front of me, so great two points for us.”

“It’s hard to tell an athlete not to try their hardest and do what they think is right. They have to get it in their head that what worked will work again. Once that happens, then I think we’ll get back on the road to success,” Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau said after the loss.