In Manhattan, it appeared as if the if the holiday break would provide no change to the New York Rangers pattern of play.
Cough up a well-earned early lead and lose in the third period.
Mika Zibanejad had two power play goals and three points in win over Canes. – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
On Friday night, the Rangers held a 4-2 lead heading to the third period on the strength of three goals in the middle frame for ma 4-1 lead over the visiting Carolina Hurricanes.
The Canes crept within one at 4-3 early in the third, but Henrik Lundqvist, who made 39 saves, closed the door and a Ryan Strome goal late in the period sealed a 5-3 win for the Blueshirts.
Mika Zibanejad struck twice on the power play and added an assist in the win.
“I thought we played pretty well and deserved the two points,” Zibanejad said. “It was a combination of things today.”
Artemi Panarin added a goal and three points on the night.
The Rangers killed off all five shorthanded situations they faced, and scored twice on their four opportunisties with the extra skater.
“Special teams are the story of the game,” Rangers head coach David Quinn said. “We get two power play goals and our penalty kill was huge.”
Chris Kreider delivered a brilliant pass to Zibanejad for one of his goals from below the goal line on a near blind back pass.
“I called for it, but apparently he didn’t hear me so he made the pass praying and hoping I was there,” Zibanejad said. “It was an unbelievable pass.”
Kreider also a had a goal off a great pass from Zibanejad.
“Every time we win the special teams battle we seem to win the game. Our PK was exceptional,” Strome said. “Two power play goals tonight. I don’t know, for some reason with our team we seem to ride or die with our special teams and tonight was a great example of some great, gutsy efforts on the PK, obviously [Lundqvist] made some great saves and some timely goals.”
Lucas Wallmark and Brett Pesce scored in the first and second periods for the Canes, and Sebastian Aho closed the deficit to one goal early in the third.
“A lot of our losses we’ve played really well, it’s just unfortunate we weren’t able to capitalize on our power play,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We actually had quite a few good looks and they got two on theirs. That’s the difference in the game, really.”
[WATCH: All Hurricanes vs. Rangers highlights]
James Reimer made 19 saves in the loss.
“The effort was there all night and we worked hard, but we gave too many easy goals to them,” Aho said. “It’s not hard enough to win against us right now. The game is right there. We play well enough and we have a lot of scoring chances. The system works, obviously. When we have a chance, we have to be a little bit sharper.”
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