No reason to get ahead of yourself, but the New York Rangers debuted the new lineup on Thursday night in a match with the visiting Winnipeg Jets.
The new guys, Artemi Panarin and Jacob Trouba proved themselves worthy of the hype.
“You think about [the first game] for so long building up to the season, and preseason games just don’t really do it, they’re not the same thing,” Trouba said. “Just getting it over with and kind of getting past it and being able to move on and start thinking about the rest of the games and getting your game to where you want to be is nice.”
But it was an older Ranger, Mika Zibanejad who stole the show in New York with a goal and four points on the night in a 6-4 Rangers win.
“It was really important for me to score this goal. The first game was intense and a little bit, you know, all over the place. So I’m just really happy I was able to do it,” Panarin said.
New York took leads of 1-0, 2-1, 3-2 and but could not shake the Jets as Winnipeg rallied each time.
“That certainly wasn’t a Picasso, that’s for sure,” Rangers coach David Quinn said, “but we found a way to win and at the end of the day that’s all that matters.”
The Jets took a 5-4 before the Rangers rallied on their own to tie at 5-5.
Brett Howden scored the game-winner with under five minutes left in the third period; the goal came off a scramble for a loose puck to the right of the cage.
“It’s the way we’re going to have to score goals and the way we’re going to have to play,” Quinn said of Howden’s goal. “Certainly, we didn’t do enough of it tonight, but it was good to see us get a goal in that fashion from somebody other than our top line.”
Marc Staal opened the scoring early in the first period and Brendan Smith closed it out with an empty netter to end it.
Henrik Lundqvist made 43 saves for the win, his 450th NHL win.
The Jets hung around all night but had a no answers late for the Rangers who struck three times in the third period.
Winnipeg got two goals from Blake Wheeler, and single markers from Kyle Connor and Mark Scheifele.
“There’s lots of real good stuff and the style of offensive game too, I didn’t feel we cheated for it,” Jets head coach Paul Maurice said after the loss. “We actually generated a lot of our offense by reloading and getting back above pucks and turning pucks back in on them, so that part was really good. We gave up five, though. I know there were six, but we gave up five, so you can’t be bragging about that game either.”
WATCH: All Jets vs. Rangers highlights]
Connor Hellebuyck made 26 saves in taking the loss.
“I liked a lot of my game, I felt like I earned better,” Hellebuyck said. “I felt like I played a lot better than five goals against. I don’t know, it just seemed like the puck was always in the wrong spot for me tonight. If I look back at the tape, I probably wouldn’t do a whole lot different, but I’ve got to do something because five is unacceptable.”
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