In Denver, Igor Shesterkin made 41 saves on Friday night to help the New York Rangers down the Avalanche, 2-1, on penalties.
“We found a way to win tonight with unbelievable goaltending. Obviously, that was the biggest need for us tonight,” New York coach Gerard Gallant said. “We didn’t play our best, but the goaltender was incredible.”
Artemi Panarin picked up an assist in regulation and was credited with the deciding goal in skills portion of the evening’s affairs.
New York improved to 14-10-6.
“We didn’t manage the puck near as well as we did last game (5-1 win against the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday),” Gallant said.
“We didn’t seem to have much skating legs tonight, and we made a lot of plays in front of their defense that turned over and they went the other way. But again, I’m pretty happy with the win, but we got to be better than that most nights.”
Colorado took a 1-0 lad late n the first period on a strike from Mikko Rantanen.
The Avs dropped to 13-11-1.
“I thought our execution was way better tonight, especially on the attack,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “Overtime was well managed by our group, I thought smart but still in attack mode. We had three really good looks in overtime, a chance to win the game, but couldn’t get one by him.”
The clubs split the two-game season series, with each winning on penalties.
New York tied the game in the second period, when Braden Schneider trailed Panarin into the attack zone and took a back pass and wristed home the tying marker.
“We got a turnover and I was boxing a guy out and I’d seen ‘Bread’ take off with one of our other guys and I’d seen a runway,” Schneider said. “I didn’t see anyone backchecking to the middle, so I thought I would jump. Bread made a perfect pass and I just put it as hard as I could to the net.”
Colorado is 0-3-1 in their last four games, New York is 4-1-1 in their last six.
“Today was the best game we played with this group for a while, so next game we’re going to try and beat today’s performance,” Bednar said. “We have to carve out points. However long it takes, we have to just continually get better.”
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Alexandar Georgiev made 28 saves in the Avs loss.
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