In New York, the Rangers entered Sunday afternoon’s matinee riding a four-game skid, their longest of the season, facing a rematch with the Washington Capitals.
The Caps handed the Rangers their fourth loss on the skid in a Saturday matinee, 3-2.
The Rangers needed a solid effort from the goal out to end the skid.
Igor Shesterkin responded with 24 saves in a 2-1 win for New York.
The Rangers improved to 27-13-2.
New York benefited from the return Kaapo Kakko from the injured Kakko was injured on 27 November and had not played since that lower body injury.
He recorded two shots on goal in a healthy 18 minutes of ice time.
The Rangers took a 1-0 lead with 50 seconds of game fresh ice used.
“I think it was important for Igor to give us a good game and I thought he did,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. “He made big saves at the right time. We needed to get a win [today] to put that behind us and start to build something new here.”
Artemi Panarin took a cross ice pass from Vincent Trocheck and shot from his knees at the left circle for the 1-0 advantage.
“I think him putting the puck to the net is a good thing,” Laviolette said. “I think he has an elite shot. He places it. Some people just shoot the puck and try to get it between the red pipes and there’s other people who actually shoot it and know where it’s going. He’s one of those guys, so the fact that he’s firing is a good thing.”
Alexis Lafreniere pushed the lead to 2-0 when came out of the right corner below the goal line, after a check, and took a pass form Brandon Schneider from the point.
“We know we can play better than we played the past couple of games before today,” Lafreniere said. “I think today we played a better game. Defensively we were better. That’s why we were winning early on, just playing hard defense and offense came after.”
Lafreniere took a shot form the low slot, and collected his own rebound to lift into the top half of the net for the strike.
The goal came with 50 seconds left in the opening stanza to put some poetry to the frame.
The Caps dropped to 20-15-6.
“I liked our game,” Washington coach Spencer Carbery said. “I thought we carried most of the play from the second half of that game or two thirds of that game. First period just a couple situations get away from us, but the overall first period I wasn’t really disappointed with other than giving up the two goals in those two situations.
“Loved our second period, loved our third period. We had to kill a ton. Penalty kill was great. We just would have liked to have found a way to get that second one and potentially get on the power play a couple more times.”
T.J. Oshie got the Caps on the board at 11:03 of the middle frame to trim the deficit to 2-1.
Shesterkin then did what he has been unable to do for weeks, protect the lead.
He made a series of stops in the back half of the second period, and in the third to preserve the win. 
Charlie Lindgren made 29 in the loss.
“He’s a battler,” Carbery said. “He hasn’t played a lot in the last few weeks with him being hurt, so we thought it was a good opportunity to go back with him. He’s played great against the Rangers in the starts that he’s played.”
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