Beat the teams you should beat. That should have been the mantra heading into the St Louis Blues’ match with the New York Rangers Monday night; and certainly for the Rangers as well.
Neither team is lighting up but the Rangers have a winning record and they improved on that with a gutsy 2-1 win over the Blues on New Year’s Eve.
Kevin Shattenkirk returned to the lineup Monday and had an assist in win – file photo courtesy of Lewis Bleiman
Henrik Lundqvist faced 40 shots and made 39 saves to get the win.
“Intense. It was fun. It was to fun battle,” Lundqvist said. “As a goalie, when you feel the guys battle as hard as they do, you get excited. You want to play even harder. You want to make that extra save.
“We worked so hard and we came up with the big plays at the end and at the right time. That wins you a lot of games in this league.”
Boo Nieves struck for the game-winner in the second period on a nifty backhand shot.
“At the end of the day, you’ve got to find a way to get two points,” New York coach David Quinn said. “There are a whole different bunch of ways to do it, and we got it because we’ve got a great goalie. I thought we played really well for 25 minutes, then we get up 2-1, and we acted like it was 9-1. Give them a lot of credit. They came hard and gave us a lot of problems. But we also created some of our own problems.”
Mats Zuccarello also scored for the Rangers.
The win belonged to Lundqvist who helped the Rangers improved to 17-14-7.
“That’s Henrik being Henrik. When you’ve got a goalie like that, he can cover up a lot of your mistakes and he definitely did tonight,” Chris Kreider said of his goalie.
Ryan O’Reilly scored the lone goal for the Blues.
“It (stinks),” O’Reilly said. “You’ve got to put the puck in the net, especially the power play too. We’ve got to find a way to bury something.
“We shot a lot of pucks, and for myself, I had a lot of opportunities and made stupid plays, and not goal-scoring plays and play-making plays, just throwing it at the net at dumb times when I’ve got to create more. We had [offensive]-zone time, we had chances, but sometimes, for myself, I’ve got to make higher-end plays than just shoveling them at the net.”
St Louis dropped to 15-18-4.
[WATCH: All Rangers vs. Blues highlights]
Jake Allen made 21 saves in the loss.
“It’s tough. It’s frustrating. Chances are there, but it’s not going in. We’re just in a bit of a dry spell right now. It’s not for a lack of effort or chances, they’re just not going in,” the Blues’ forward Jaden Schwartz said after the game.
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