Rangers: Busy Slate After Thanksgiving

The New York Rangers did just enough offensively and relied on the play of Igor Shesterkin between the pipes to defeat the Carolina Hurricanes, 3-2, on Wednesday. With the victory, New York became the first team to notch double-digit wins on the road. The Blueshirts are in Boston on Black Friday and face Tampa at home on Saturday.

Rangers lines against the Hurricanes:

Cuylle-Zibanejad-Lafrenière
Panarin-Trocheck-Miller  
Berard-Laba-Brodzinski
Edström-Carrick-Raddysh

Gavrikov-Fox
Soucy-Schneider
Vaakanainen-Robertson

Shesterkin
Garand

Scratches: Mackey, Sheary
IR: Borgen (upper-body injury, might play this weekend), Quick (lower-body injury)
LTIR: Rempe (upper-body injury)

Conor Sheary a healthy scratch for the first time this season.

A few thoughts:

1) Igor was on top of his game, making 35 saves. Granted, Carolina is known for their high shot total, as they will shoot from everywhere, which is what highlighted was many. But several saves by Shesterkin, as seen in the recap video above, were high-quality ones, especially when protecting a 3-2 lead. Shesterkin has notched back-to-back wins and it will be interesting to see if coach Mike Sullivan starts him in both ends of the back-to-back or afford Dylan Garand his first NHL outing.

2) Berard-Laba-Brodzinski – the third line was key as they played the north-south and forechecking game that Sullivan loves. Noah Laba scored the first goal of the game thanks to a solid job of puck possession in the offensive zone. Each of the three has enough speed to create through the neutral zone and get on opponents in the defensive zone. Hopefully Sullivan keeps this unit together for a bit to see what they can do. That would require Sheary remaining as a healthy scratch or replacing Taylor Raddysh on the fourth iine and not Jonny Brodzinski on this trio.

3) Panarin-Trocheck-Miller – Dave Maloney highlighted how the goals scored by Panarin and Trocheck were created. On Trocheck, Panarin did his usual, going parallel to the blue line, forcing the D to focus on him. Miller, who returned to action after missing a few games, drove the middle to the net, creating open space, while Trocheck filled that area and beat Frederik Andersen for his fifth in 11 games.

Panarin’s tally came off the faceoff. Mika Zibanejad got the puck back to Adam Fox off the faceoff win by Miller. Great read by Fox to find Panarin with a diagonal cross ice pass with Panarin beating Andersen short side with a one-timer. 

New York needs at least three points this weekend as they have already played more games than almost all of the division and conference. Racking up wins and points will put some pressure on the other teams to do the same and keep the Rangers in the early hunt. Some puck luck evened out Wednesday, more of that would be greatly welcomed.