In Manhattan Tuesday night, the New York Rangers’ Neal Pionk took the behind his cage and did a 360° maneuver to avoid a forecheck and then proceeded to outrace the entire Montreal Canadiens on-ice team and score the go-ahead goal in a 5-3 win for the Rangers.
It was Pionk’s second of the season and was worthy of a highlight reel unto itself.
“Honestly, I compare it to a quarterback doing check downs,” Pionk said of his goal. “So, when I’m behind the net I’m doing my check downs; first option, second option, third option was to spin away from him and the fourth option was just to skate it in, cut to the inside, go to the outside. Once I realized I had a step on him, then came the fifth option, cut in and score.”
The Canadiens had built a 3-1 lead before the Rangers rallied for four unanswered goals.
Mika Zibanejad, Tony DeAngelo and Pavel Buchnevich also scored in the rally.
DeAngelo scored off a wrist shot from the point to start the rally.
“You could just feel the energy change,” Lundqvist said. “It made a difference going into the third.”
Henrik Lundqvist made 31 saves to get the win, the fourth straight for New York.
Tomas Tatar struck twice and Max Domi added a single marker in the loss.
“I don’t care what anybody says, we had a 3-1 lead so we weren’t that tired,” Canadiens head coach Claude Julien said. “At the end of the day, we made a lot of individual mistakes, mental mistakes. Whether it’s focus, whatever it is, it was self-inflicted.”
Kevin Hayes kicked in three assists on the night in a solid effort.
A second intermission speech from Rangers head coach David Quinn added to the intensity of the third period.
“All I said is don’t come in here and act like you care about it if you don’t put the effort into it,” Quinn said. “You’ve got to earn victories in this league and I thought we did a pretty good job of that in the third period. I thought we earned it.”
The Rangers improved to 7-7-1.
“When you’re 3-7-2, that’s brutal,” Hayes said. “We were in the basement of the League. You don’t want to be there. You don’t want to see your name down there. We battled back tonight like we battled back in the season.”
Chris Kreider scored in the opening frame to tie the game 1-1 early.
“The way we came back here, I think we can learn from it. The way we played in two periods didn’t really help us and it put us in a tough spot,” Lundqvist said. “[Quinn] let us know going into the third, in a good way, and for us to see the difference, how we play for two and how we played in the third and how we got rewarded in the third, that’s going to help us moving forward.”
[WATCH: All Canadiens vs. Rangers highlights]
Carey Price made 27 saves in the loss.
“I thought our jump was pretty good off the start of the game. I think just as the game went on we just allowed ourselves to become fatigued. I don’t know if that’s the reality of it, but it’s what it seems to me,” Price said after the disappointing loss.
Montreal dropped to 8-5-2.
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