In New York, the Rangers got Mika Zibanejad back in the lineup and it didn’t take him three minutes to have an imp-act in the game.
Zibanejad scored to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead over the Carolina Hurricanes off a nifty feed from Adam Fox at the right circle.
“Our whole lineup looks different when you have him in it,” Rangers coach David Quinn said. “He gives us swagger, but he also gives us a lot of depth. It’s amazing what one center can do to your whole lineup. The lineup looks a lot longer and a lot deeper.”
The Rangers posted three first period goals and then sat back to rest on the laurels.
Fortunately, Henrik Lundqvist made 41 saves (in his 1000th NHL game) to hold the Canes who buried two markers in the second period to get as close as 3-2, but that was all as the Rangers won, 3-2, for their third straight win.
“It’s a fun feeling when you win in different ways,” Lundqvist said. “I thought the other night (a 3-2 overtime win against the Minnesota Wild on Monday) was more the skill that helped us. Tonight, I thought it was more the will.”
Ryan Dzingel and Warren Foegele were the Canes scorers.
“You’ve got to play for 60 minutes and we weren’t ready at the start,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We were a litlte sluggish and bing, bing, bing. Now you’ve got to dig your way out of a hole. We weren’t able to do that. That’s the most disappointing part is to come out like that. We dug in after that, but it’s too late.”
That could be said of both teams.
Adam Fox and Brendan Smith added goals in the first period as the Rangers improved to 12-9-2.
“All I was worried about coming back was making sure the team was still winning,” Zibanejad said. “You want to come in and just help. I’m supposed to help offensively, and obviously [it’s] a lot nicer to get that first goal early to not think about that, just kind of get playing again.”
[WATCH: All Hurricanes vs. Rangers highlights]
Petr Mrazek made 22 saves in the loss.
“We were just trying to build in that second period to give us a chance,” Foegele said, “but if we come out hard in the first, it could be a different result.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.