For a team need of a confidence building win, the New York Rangers found themselves needing to get that victory against the St Louis Blues on Wednesday night.
For For 57:46, the Rangers played a terrific game, in those other 2:14 they very nearly gave it all away.
Leading 2-0 heading into the final minutes of the middle frame, the Rangers coughed up three straight goals to the Blues to head for the third period, down, 2-3.
To their credit, the Rangers posted three straight in the third period to rally for a 5-3 win.
New York tied the game, 3-3, at 7:27 of the third off a goal from Patrik Nemeth, his first NHL goal.
Chris Kreider scored off the power play for a 4-3 lead, his power play goal came after the Rangers took a time out with 40 seconds left on the man advantage.
“What was it about 10 minutes left to go in the game, so we figured it was a good time to use the timeout and keep those guys out there, give them another chance,” Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said. “It worked.”
Artemi Panarin iced the win with an empty-net strike for the 5-3 final.
Igor Shesterkin made 29 saves in the win, he was uncharacteristic in giving up more than two goals in a game.
“There are going to be certain nights when you don’t have it, but to be able to dig in and do whatever it takes to win hockey games, that’s certainly easier when you have the best goalie in the world,” Kreider said. “But at the same time, being able to find our game, being able to forget about a bad shift or a bad period, not letting it stack, not letting the frustration overcome, and not just going out there working to work, but starting to work hard and for each other and communicate, those are very important things and things we can build on.”
The Blues’ Ryan O’Reilly, Ivan Barbashev, and David Perron scored i the late second period outburst to snag a 3-2 lead heading to the third.
“We know they’re a really good offensive team and we just got thinking a little bit too much instead of skating and supporting each other,” O’Reilly said. “They made us pay.”
St Louis dropped to 32-15-6.
Alexis Lafreniere opened the scoring in the first period for a 1-0 lead to the Rangers, his second effort after a missed chance led to an easy wrister for the lead.
“They upped their intensity in the third and had us on our heels and ended up tying it, and then we took a costly penalty and they scored,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “We played two real good periods. We need to close that out.”
Ryan Strome extended the lead to 2-0 in the middle frame.
Lafreniere has five goals in his last nine games.
“We just needed to get one to get some confidence and tilt the ice a bit,” O’Reilly said. “We came wave after wave, got some good bounces and put the puck in the net. It left us in a good spot going into the third.”
The Rangers were put on their heels with the outburst from the Blues and the locker room may not have been a safe place to be.
“[It was] over basically falling asleep two and a half minutes,” he said. “We were in 
control. They were the better team, don’t get me wrong, but 2-0, we’re in control of the game. If they get one you can live with that, that happens, but to give up three goals like that it was pretty discouraging.”
Ville Husso made 24 saves in the St Louis loss.
“It’s a lesson for us,” O’Reilly said. “I think we’re a better team than them, I think we can beat them, and we just didn’t have the full 60 that we needed to tonight.”
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