After a shaky first period, Henrik Lundqvist made 22 saves to help the New York Rangers defeat the visiting New Jersey Devils, 4-2.
The win snapped an 0-4-2 stretch for the Rangers.
Henrik Lundqvist recovered from early goals to shut down Devils in win – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“There’s been a lot of games this year I feel like we deserved to win and we didn’t, but tonight there’s no question we deserved the two points the way we played,” Lundqvist said. “It’s just unfortunate they were up 2-0, especially the late second goal in the first. Obviously it was a hill to climb for us and the biggest challenge was probably not to get frustrated.”
Vladislav Namestnikov‘s 10th goal of the season with less than seven minutes left in regulation gave the Rangers the lead for good.
“There are 14 games to go and you can feel it in that locker room, winning feels way better than losing,” Rangers coach David Quinn said. “Obviously, our situation is what it is, but we want to win hockey games. I thought that our intention over the last two games had slipped a little bit and I thought we got back to it tonight.”
Ryan Strome struck twice and Libor Hajek scored his first NHL goal for the Rangers.
The Devils took a 2-0 lead in the first period off goals from Damon Severson and Blake Coleman but then could not get through the Rangers defense of Lundqvist.
“That three-minute sequence left a very sour taste in our mouth going into the second period,” Quinn said. “I give our guys a lot of credit because we kept playing. We shook it off.”
New Jersey is 05-1 in their last six and dropped to 25-35-9.
“We didn’t get frustrated,” Lundqvist said. “We just kept going and it paid off in the end. It’s important for us just to get rewarded here.”
The interesting thing with the Rangers is their capacity to just play the game. Hajek’s goal was celebrated with enthusiasm, not an emotion seen in Madison Square Garden very often.
“You’ve got to find reasons for why this game means something to us and it’s important, and you’ve got to push yourself,” Lundqvist said. “You can’t get stuck in what just happened. That was the key going into the second period. We didn’t think about the first. We knew we could do a little bit better, and we did.”
[WATCH: All Devils vs. Rangers highlights]
Cory Schneider made 37 saves in the loss.
“It’s frustrating, especially being up 2-0 after one and having a lead going into the third,” Schneider said. “To lose in regulation is tough.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.