When all around you busy losing, it’s time to get to winning.
The New York Rangers pushed their success to 8-3-0 with a 5-2 win over the Hurricanes in Raleigh on Friday night.
Igor Shesterkin made 27 saves to for the win
Mika Zibanejad had an unassisted breakaway goal in the first period for the Rangers – file photo by by Lewis Bleiman
“The guys were playing with a lot of emotion,” New York’s Brady Skjei said. “We had a ton of energy going the entire night. The way we thought and the way we played, it was a really solid game for us.”
Shesterkin is now 8-1-0 since his call up.
“He’s been on a hot run,” Rangers head coach David Quinn said. “Our guys have a lot of confidence in all our goalies, but he’s been the guy who keeps winning. When a guy’s in there doing what he’s been doing, your team feels a little more confident.”
Brock McGinn and Sebastian Aho were the Canes’ strikers.
“I felt like we were chasing the game the whole time,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We never really could get to what we wanted to do. They play a good game for sure. We always say you earn your breaks. They got a few tonight.”
Chasing is right as the Rangers used their speed to separate themselves from the Canes defense most of the night.
Mike Zibanejad made that clear when he blocked a shot attempt at the Rangers’ blueline and took the puck in on a breakaway goal for a 1-0 lead in the first period. The foot race was no match.
Jesper Fast, Artemi Panarin and Skjei also scored for the Rangers.
“We were really on top of them, not only in the offensive zone but in the neutral zone,” Quinn said. “We didn’t give them a lot of time and space. I’m really proud of our guys. Just a gutsy effort.”
Ryan Strome added an empty net goal to seal it.
“Five or 10 games ago when we were struggling a little bit, we couldn’t get any [bounces],” Strome said. “But we had guys going to the net, we had guys playing hard. When we played these guys earlier in the year, we got dominated. You look at the game tonight, it speaks volumes about how far our team has come.”
[WATCH: All Rangers vs. Hurricanes highlights]
Petr Mrazek made 31 saves in the loss.
“[The Rangers] were good,” Brind’Amour said. “They were desperate a little more than we were, but that’s the bigger issue. We needed to have a little more desperation early in the game to kind of set the tone, and we never did.”
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