In New York, the Rangers got a so-so game from goalie Alexander Georgiev, but K’Andre Miller hit for the game-winner midway through extra time to give them a 5-4 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Sunday.
“You’re going to have those games, up and down battles,” Miller said. “I think it just shows how deep our team is and what we can bring every night. Obviously, it wasn’t our best, but we made it work and found a way.”
Georgiev made 13 saves in the Rangers, but overtime was needed because of his inability to close the five hole on what should have been a routine save on a close-in shot from Buffalo’s Jeff Skinner.
The Rangers took a 2-0 lead in the first period off two strikes from Frank Vatrano, the goals came 18 seconds apart in the first period and appeared to be sending the Rangers to an easy .
“He’s fitting in well,” Gallant said. “That line (Vatrano, Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad) had some chances. He scored two goals, great shots, making the right plays. They’re coming together.”
In typical New York fashion, the Rangers went to sleep and surrendered three straight goals to fall behind 3-2 in the second period.
“We played a pretty solid game again tonight, but we made some turnovers,” New York coach Gerard Gallant said. “We didn’t play as fast as we did the other night (a 5-1 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday), and it was probably bad getting out to that 2-0 lead, thought it was going to be easy again and then fall into that habit where we started turning pucks over again.”
Rasmus Asplund scored in the first period to get the Sabres within 2-1.
New York improved to 42-19-5.
Will Butcher and Kyle Okposo scored in the second period to get the Sabres the lead.
“I think it says a lot about our group,” Okposo said. “I mean, we’re down 2-0 five minutes into the game, and it’s a tough building, loud building. They push hard right away, and I thought we just did a really good job of calming down and settling into our game. … ‘Andy’ did a great job making some saves to allow us to get going in our game. But credit to our guys sticking with it.”
Alexis Lafreniere scored a nifty goal in tight to send the game to the third period tied, 3-3.
“It’s a big goal,” Skinner said. “I think our power play, recently we’ve been getting decent looks, we just haven’t been able to get that goal and finish the play off. But obviously a big moment in the game there.”
The Sabres dropped to 23-33-10,.
“We’re starting to figure out how to play every game,” Okposo said. “And that’s something that’s a very hard thing to do. I’m not saying that we’re there yet, because we’re not. But we’re starting to show some glimpses of it where we’re sticking to our game no matter what.
“I think that today was a testament to that, and I’ve said it a lot, a ton of times, that that’s the mark of the truly good teams in this league and we’re showing signs of getting there. By no means is it a finished product.”
Artemi Panarin scored early in the third period for a 4-2 lead to New York.
Craig Anderson made 26 saves in the Sabres loss.
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