In New York, Kaapo Kakko and Artemi Panarin scored on penalties Tuesday night to help the Rangers complete rally for a 4-3 win over the Minnesota Wild.
The Wild scored twice in the opening period for a 2-0 lead that they were unable told.
After the Rangers tied it, 2-2, in the middle frame, the Wild took a 3-2 lead in the third period on a marker from Mats Zuccarello.
But Filip Chytil scored off a scramble at the Wild net to tie the game, forcing extra time, with less than seven minutes left on the regulation clock.
“When you have possession and you have good opportunities to shoot and you get chances, that’s what we had the whole shift,” Chytil said. “At the end we scored not the nicest goal, but important and a big goal for our team.”
The game went to the skills portion of the evening’s affairs after the Rangers failed to score on a power play in the extra session.
“We had that power play in OT and didn’t get it done; we had a couple looks at it but didn’t score,” New York coach Gerard Gallant said. “But fortunately for us, ‘Breadman’ is pretty good in the shootout and Kaapo Kakko is pretty good. I thought we deserved to win the hockey game.”
Igor Shesterkin made 29 saves through overtime, and stopped two shooters on penalties.
“It’s pretty important for a team like ours, especially if we make the playoffs,” Panarin said of the comeback win. “It’s an important skill if we can go together and keep it, it doesn’t matter how things are going, we can do the same thing.”
New York improved to 23-12-7.
“I felt real good about our game tonight,” Gallant said.
Jon Merrill and Kirill Kaprizov scored in the first period for the Wild to give them the 2-0 advantage.
“We can’t live with just giving them the puck and obviously the first two goals we turned the puck over,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “Those pucks both should have been put into safer areas. We turned the puck over at the blue line and the team scored two goals on us. Those two goals shouldn’t happen.”
The Wild dropped to 22-14-4.
K’Andre Miller scored off a breakaway in the second period, after Jimmy Vesey knocked the puck off a Wild stick, the goal made it 2-1 to the Wild.
“We were down 2-0 in the first, I thought we could have been winning after the first period,” Fox the Rangers’ Adam said. “But we battled. If we play like that I think we’re going to win a lot of games.”
Fox tied it on a second breakaway in the frame, he used Panarin as a decoy to get the equalizer.
“I definitely think I wanted to pass but I saw a little opening there, I just tried to put it in an area,” Fox said. “Not a goal scorer by any means, so just trying to find a little area there and I was happy it went in.”
Marc-Andre Fleury made 40 saves in the loss.
“We got some points, but we all know it’s not good enough,” Fleury said. “The standings are so close. To make playoffs you need points, we need to get wins. It’s about getting out of this slump as quickly as possible to start winning again.”
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