Rangers beat Oilers, 4-2, in Edmonton
Photo credit: AP | New York Rangers right wing Ryan Callahan (24), right, celebrates his goal with teammate Michael Del Zotto (4) against the Edmonton Oilers during the second period. (November 5, 2009)
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Nov. 5: Rangers 4, Oilers 2
EDMONTON — The dormant power play awoke and backup goaltender Steve Valiquette stood tall as the Rangers got back into the win column in the second game of this Western Canada trip with a 4-2 win over the Oilers last night at Rexall Place.
After an 0-for-16 drought with the man advantage in the past four games, Ryan Callahan, Ales Kotalik and Marian Gaborik scored to lift the Rangers to their 10th victory of the season in a place where the Blueshirts hadn’t won in 10 years.
After averaging just 23 shots in the last four games, the Rangers fired 14 at Oilers goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin in the first period and took a 1-0 lead on Chris Higgins’ second goal in two games. Higgins, who played his best period of the season on a line with Artem Anisimov and Ales Kotalik, had three shots and one-timed Matt Gilroy’s pass from behind the goal line at 15:28.
It was only the second time in five games that the Blueshirts had scored first.
Callahan, who hadn’t found the net in 10 games, ended that personal skid when he redirected Michael Del Zotto’s hard pass from the left circle at 10:36 of the second for a 2-0 edge, and over on the Oilers side, associate coach Tom Renney, who was behind the visitors bench against his former team for the first time in four years, seemed to sag.
Valiquette, who had surrendered five goals on 18 shots against the Sharks on Oct. 19, and shut out the Ducks, 3-0, on Oct. 11, failed to squeeze the left post as Lubomir Visnovsky swept by with Higgins tying him up. Visnovsky’s backhander trimmed the Rangers lead in half with 5:08 left in the second.
But Kotalik’s rising one-timer on the power play knocked the water bottle off the top of the net and beat Khabibulin at 16:37 to restore the two-goal advantage. And Marian Gaborik, who was held off the scoresheet in Vancouver, tapped in a loose puck at the post for his 12th of the season at 7:31 of the third.
The Oilers, now 6-3-1 at home, have been undercut by injuries to No. 1 defenseman Sheldon Souray and No. 1 center Shawn Horcoff as well as by illness, with a dozen players coming down with the flu, They tried to come back with Mike Comrie’s goal at 10:17.
The Rangers managed just one shot at the end of their only power play in the first, when Steve MacIntyre went off for hooking. Aaron Voros was sent off twice, for tripping at 4:29 and a high-stick on Robert Nilsson at 10:03, but the Rangers, ranked fourth in the league in penalty-killing, denied the Oilers, with Chris Drury and Brian Boyle turning in smart plays.
In the second, the Rangers killed a fourth power play and almost doubled the lead, but Michal Rozsival’s open shot from the high slot with 11:23 left dinged off the left post and on the next Oilers rush, Valiquette stretched out to glove Dustin Penner’s far-side shot.
Valiquette is now 2-1 for the season as the backup to Henrik Lundqvist, who will play against the Flames in Calgary tomorrow as the Rangers wrap up the road swing.
“He’s going to play a lot more games,” coach John Torotrella said. “We need him to play well to get where we want to be.”
