In San Jose, the New York Rangers’ Igor Shesterkin had a 37-saves in his first game back from NHL COVID19 protocol in a 3-0 win over the Sharks on Thursday night. 
“A lot of the credit has to go to Shesterkin,” Rangers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “There were a lot of Grade-A scoring chances and he came up with some big saves.”
Braden Schneider made his debut with the Rangers a memorable one, his third period goal was his first career NHL strike and gave the Rangers a 2-0 lead.
“The whole day I was quite jittery,” Schneider said. “I couldn’t really sit still. My nap wasn’t too great. I came to the rink and same thing, I had nerves and I just tried to stay in the moment. When I got on the ice for warmup, it became a little bit more real. Then I don’t think it hit me until my first shift of the game. I felt like after that I settled in and I got a little bit more confident as the game went on.”
The Rangers improved to 24-10-4.
Chris Kreider scored twice for New York, his first goal was a shorthanded strike in the opening frame.
“We know our special teams have to be better,” the Sharks’ Timo Meier said. “As a power play, you want to be out there to score goals and not allow them. Next game we’re going to work harder to score them.”
The Sharks fell to 20-17-1.
“We’ve got to score to win,” Boughner said. “Tonight I thought we played a good game. I didn’t think we shot ourselves in the foot or get dominated. We fought hard, and the difference I think was giving up a shortie. … We battled hard, we just couldn’t find any offense. It wasn’t from a lack of trying.”
Kreider’s second goal was into an empty-net, and was his 200th career NHL goal.
Adin Hill made 28 saves in the San Jose loss.
“He’s definitely giving us a chance every night,” Sharks head coach Bob Boughner said. “We’ve asked him to give us a chance to win every night and I think he’s done that. Poised, calm. We need to get some offense for him.”
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