Rangers' power play finally gets back on track after an 0-for-18 drought
Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad of the Rangers celebrates a second period goal against Ilya Sorokinof the Islanders during their Stadium Series game scored by Vincent Trocheck (not pictured) at MetLife Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
During a seven-game stretch in which their power play went 0-for-18, the Rangers still were confident. They never had any doubts that, eventually, their power play would again become the devastating weapon it had been in the first half of this season and the last few years.
“We kind of never lost faith in each other,’’ point man Adam Fox said.
When their power play went 3-for-5 in Sunday’s 6-5 overtime win over the Islanders in the Stadium Series game, it validated their belief that the goals were bound to come as long as they kept doing the right things.
Down 5-3 late in the third period against the Isles, the power play connected on two opportunities – albeit with the goaltender pulled to give them a two-man advantage – to tie the game and force overtime, where Artemi Panarin’s goal 10 seconds into the extra session won it.
“It's more, just that our power play came up big when we needed to,’’ Mika Zibanejad said Tuesday before the Rangers (36-16-3, 75 points, first in the Metropolitan Division) played the Dallas Stars (34-14-8, 76 points, first in the Central Division) at Madison Square Garden. “All the other numbers before that didn't really matter when it came down to it.’’
According to Vincent Trocheck, there was never any reason to doubt the Rangers’ power play, even when it wasn’t scoring.
“I haven't felt like we've been playing bad on the power play,’’ Trocheck said. “I think we were doing the right things, getting opportunities. And it was just a matter of time. You go through waves in a season, you go through ups and downs. And you’ve just got to kind of ‘feel’ it out. You can't panic, and you’ve got to stick to your basics. You can't try to do anything crazy. That's when things start to go south.’’
Which is not to say there wasn’t concern, and frustration, as the scoreless streak continued to grow. At one point last week, coach Peter Laviolette briefly broke up the top power-play unit of Fox, Zibanejad, Panarin, Trocheck and Chris Kreider and tried to create two more balanced units. But the new units didn’t even last a whole game before Laviolette went back to the tried-and-true top group.
“We were still 5th in the league [before Sunday],’’ Zibanejad said. “That means that we did something very right before that and put ourselves in a good position. We've had success and I guess the only thing that could have been better throughout the drought is to create a few more chances.
“Sometimes it's easier to -- I guess accept not scoring, if you're creating chances, [if] we're hitting posts,’’ Zibanejad continued. “I don't think we did to the extent that we wanted to, but I thought we were way better [Sunday], especially in that third period when we got opportunities to get shots and opportunities to attack the net.’’
With the Rangers on a season-high seven-game winning streak entering Tuesday and holding a four-point lead over second-place Carolina in the Metro, Laviolette on Monday allowed himself to view the power play’s coming to life as a good thing for the not-too-distant future, rather than just a thing that helped win a game Sunday.
“To score goals like that, we needed that, certainly in that instant and those circumstances,’’ Laviolette said. “And we'd like to try and build off of that if we could. It’s a long way to the playoffs, but I know that as you move down toward the end of the season you want things to be firing and executing the right way. And that was a good start.’’
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
