For about 41 minutes in New York on Tuesday night, the Rangers chased their game with the Carolina Hurricanes.
In the first minutes of the third period, Artemi Panarin scored his 11th of the season, a shot form the blue line, to tie the game for the final time at 3-3.
“For sure we try and focus 100 percent for every game, but that game, that team is special,” Panarin said. “… Maybe it was harder for them to keep focused, but they still played good.”
K’Andre Miller scored from nearly as far away for a 4-3 lead, and Filip Chytil added an empty-net goal on the power play for a 5-3 final, and the win for the Rangers.
“It’s a big game,” Miller said. “I don’t think we’re too worried about their record and shutting down their streaks and things like that, but I think they’re a good team over there and they have a lot of skill, and they definitely have all the skill and power to have that [win] streak.”
Igor Shesterkin made 20 saves in the Rangers win.
“This one feels good,” said New York’s Vincent Trocheck, a former Carolina forward. “Obviously it’s a former team but it’s also a team that’s been really hot lately, they had won 11 in a row, a divisional team, so to get a win against these guys, it means a lot for our club.”
The Rangers imp[roved to 21-12-6.
The loss snapped an 11-game win streak the Canes were working on.
“We came off it,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “It was going to happen at some point. You know, and you say that and we were still going into the third and we had a chance to win the game. So not great on our part. Got to be better if we’re going to win at a consistent pace like we have been. That game was not indicative probably of the way we played, and yet we were still right there to the end.”
The Canes took three leads in the game, twice within 30 seconds of the Rangers tying the game.
Brent Burns, Martin Necas, and Jalen Chatfield were the Carolina strikers.
Mika Zibanejad (power play) and Jacob Trouba (power play) also scored for the Rangers.
“Obviously they’ve been one of the hottest teams in the NHL the last number of games and a top team in the League, so we weren’t perfect tonight,” New York coach Gerard Gallant said. “We got some puck luck tonight, but it’s a big win, it’s a good game for us and we’ve got to continue to do that, build on games like this.”
The Canes surrendered three power play goals on five Rangers chances.
“We have a big emphasis on our penalty kill and want that to be really strong, and tonight just wasn’t our night for that,” Hurricanes defenseman Brady Skjei said. “So, we’ll watch some video and learn from this and then definitely move on.”
Carolina dropped to 25-7-6.
“A good team like this, they are going to take advantage of mistakes and [we] just didn’t quite have it tonight,” Skjei said. “Obviously we’ve done something very special here the last few weeks. So, try to forget about this one and then move on and try to get a streak going.”
Pyotr Kochetkov made 26 saves in the Canes loss.
“He’s going to want those back, obviously,” Brind’Amour said. “But he made some nice saves in the game, it’s just a couple of those goals are tough. He’ll bounce back.”
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