Have the young Rangers finally reached a turning point?
David Quinn saw the shift just a few days ago, during that loss in Vancouver.
The Rangers were playing a complete 60 minutes, their forecheck looked good and the defensive acumen that had long eluded them finally stirred to life. All they had to do was score.
Finally, two days after that 2-1 loss to the Canucks, they did, and Quinn, along with a number of Rangers, said this could be something of a turning point for a young team that has struggled to find its footing early on and still remains solidly outside the playoff picture.
“We’re not going to go from where we are to where we need to be overnight,” Quinn said after a gutsy 5-3 win over the Avalanche at Madison Square Garden Tuesday. “There’s got to be a progression, and I thought we’ve been making a lot of progress, in particular in the last two games we played.”
And despite a handful of defensive lapses Tuesday, there was plenty to like. Igor Shesterkin, the 24-year-old phenom who likely will succeed Henrik Lundqvist in net, looked thoroughly unfazed by his first NHL game. The line of Artemi Panarin, Ryan Strome and Jesper Fast combined for eight points (two goals, six assists), and most notably, the Rangers never looked beat despite playing against one of the best offenses in the NHL and going down 2-0 within the first seven minutes.
“We played a good game in Vancouver . . . [and] Quinny said if we play like that, we’re going to win a lot of games and I thought we did a real good job [against the Avalanche],” Strome said. “We didn’t give them too many opportunities, we played pretty solid, pretty sound defensively, we had some timely goals and special teams were really good, so that’s kind of our recipe this season.”
The Rangers on Tuesday were 1-for-3 on the power play and 3-for-3 on the penalty kill, allowing only six shots playing a man down. They haven’t allowed a power-play goal in their last three games — 10-for-10 total — and are 14-6-1 when they don’t allow a power-play goal goal. They also have five power-play goals in the last six games. They have a 20-18-4 record and entered Wednesday six points out of the last playoff spot.
“I think everybody in this locker room realizes that if we’re going to have a chance to have the season we think we’re capable of, we certainly can’t play the way we have the first 30 games where we’ve got the inconsistencies and that pond hockey approach from time to time,” Quinn said. “I just think the last two games we look like a different, purposeful hockey team.”
And with a day off Wednesday, and the basement-dwelling Devils on the horizon, the Rangers have every opportunity to attack again — well-rested and fully cognizant of what they need to execute to be effective.
“I thought we stuck to it, kept it simple and kept harping on the things we did well in Vancouver and we wanted to keep going with that,” said Mika Zibanejad, who scored his 17th goal on Tuesday night. “I think a lot of us mentioned that if we play like that, we think we’re going to win more than we lose. That showed [Tuesday]. We didn’t really take our foot off the gas pedal.”
Lindgren meets with NHL. Rangers defenseman Ryan Lindgren had a hearing with the NHL Wednesday for an illegal hit to the head of Colorado’s Joonas Donskoi on Tuesday night. Lindgren was not penalized for the hit but was attacked by Colorado’s Nazem Kadri, who was given an instigator penalty for starting the fight.
Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.
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