The New York Rangers rallied from 3-1 and 4-2 deficits to notch a 5-4 shootout win over the Flyers. New York’s power play produced when needed, successfully converting to tie the contest late in the third period. The Blueshirts, who lost JT Miller to an upper-body injury, are back in action today on the road against the Predators.
Game recap:
Rangers lines vs. Flyers:
Sheary-Trocheck-Miller
Panarin-Zibanejad-Lafrenière
Perreault-Laba-Cuylle
Othmann-Carrick-Rempe
Gavrikov-Schneider
Soucy-Borgen
Robertson-Morrow
Shesterkin
Quick
Scratches: Raddysh, Vaakanainen, Brodzinski
LTIR: Fox (upper-body injury), Edström (lower-body injury)
A few thoughts:
1) Miller absorbed a clean open ice hit from Nick Seeler in the neutral zone with a little over 20 minutes left in the third period. that sent him down. His right shoulder absorbed the brunt of the impact, sidelining the Rangers’ captain the rest of the contest and likely will keep him out Sunday.
In his place, Will Cuylle moved up from the third line to play with Vincent Trocheck and Gabe Perreault, who was promoted starting the second period. Perreault moved up to replace Conor Sheary, who is miscast on the second line. If Miller is sidelined, look for this trio to start Sunday’s game together.
2) Perreault: as Vince Mercogliano noted, Perreault saw 15:31 TOI, including 7:31 on a line with Trocheck and Miller. They generated three HD chances without allowing any while doubling the Flyers with a 10-5 ratio on shot attempts. Perreault posted his third point in five contests, assisting on Trocheck’s goal that made the score 4-3 in the third period.
Before the game, coach Mike Sullivan provided a detailed answer why Perreault was not in the top-six. Agree or disagree with the decision, but the rationale is somewhat sound. To his credit, Sullivan promoted Perreault due to his solid play.
“Our observation when we had him up the last time was, it was a really difficult task,” the coach said. “Our thought process was, when we put him right up into the top six, is we understand the type of player that he is, and we’re trying to put him in a position to be successful. He’s an offensive player with good offensive instincts, and so our intention was to put him with our best offensive people, and that’s what we did.
“The flip side of that is you’re going to play against the opponent’s top players. You’re going to get the top defense players. You’re going to get the very best players that you’re playing against. And so, this time around, we thought more in terms of, would it make sense for Gabe if we put him around some different people, and maybe he doesn’t get the top defense pair? It gives him an opportunity to act on his instincts and do his thing that way, and then we’ll watch him and we’ll see.”
3) Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin: the big boys were the big boys Saturday. Zibanejad tallied the tying goal and added an assist on Panarin’s opening goal. Panarin added a second tally in the second on a steal in the neutral zone. The paired duo with Alexis Lafreniere helped lead and rally the Rangers to the win.
As Mercogliano noted, the underlying numbers have been solid for Panarin, Zibanejad and Lafrenière, with a 54.49 percent expected goals-for rate and 40-23 advantage in high-danger scoring chances across 169:13 of ice time, according to Natural Stat Trick. Until Saturday, though, it had only led to three goals while allowing six.
Saturday, the inverse was the case. Zib and Bread were out-attempted (18-15), outshot (12-7) and on the wrong end of the HD chances battle (4-2), but the scoreboard read 2-1 Rangers during 14:04 of shared TOI at five-on-five. This is the case where the advanced numbers show that the process didn’t work but the end result was all that mattered.
Zibanejad’s goal was his 115th power-play goal as a member of the Rangers, putting him within one of tying both Camille Henry and Chris Kreider for the franchise record. The goal also moved him into a tie for sixth place with Vic Hadfield on the all-time Rangers franchise list. Zibanejad is up to 262 goals, next up is Andy Bathgate (272), and at 12 tallies this season, he is one behind Bread for the team lead after notching just 20 goals last season.
4) Scott Morrow and Igor Shesterkin: both players had up-and-down contests. Morrow had a pair of egregious turnovers. The second was easily intercepted by Sanheim, directly leading to Rodrigo Abols’ short-handed goal. Normally, Sullivan would sit the rookie, Saturday, he stuck with Morrow, who helped create Zibanejad’s power-play goal by creating space and an angle for the shot with his play and assist from the point. Sullivan’s comments post-game told the story of why he went with Morrow.
“What I’ll say is that he’s an incredible kid, and his ability to shrug off some of the plays and continue to perform out there, I think, speaks volumes for the character of what he’s about,” Sullivan said. “He’s a young player. He’s going to make some mistakes, and let’s be honest: we’re putting him in some really high-profile positions, whether it be on the power play and overtime, things of that nature. He’s playing a significant role here with this group right now, especially with Foxy being out. … He’ll become a better player because of these experiences that he’s going through.”
Despite the win, though, Igor’s play has been concerning. As Mercogliano added, he started the season strong, but there’s been a noticeable dip of late. That includes 28 saves on 32 shots faced Saturday, which dropped his save percentage to .908. He’s been .880 or worse in four of his last five games and was clearly frustrated after this one after a brutal second period. Shesterkin allowed at least two bad goals but he rebounded to shut the Flyers out in the third period, overtime and shootout to get the win as the Rangers rallied. He has mixed spectacular play with weak goals as he has been too inconsistent of late.
The win and rally were nice but the team’s play at home still is uneven. New York has already played 37 contests, more than anyone else in the Metro Division, and if fact, the Eastern Conference. The Rangers have to hope other teams lose, as they don’t control their own destiny. In addition, the Blueshirts have yet to put together consistent performances, making their postseason hopes, even if they get in, look remote.
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