Rangers defeat Canadiens to tie franchise single-season record of 53 wins
Mika Zibanejad of the Rangers celebrates his second-period goal against the Canadiens with his teammates at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
For weeks now, the Rangers have said that facing the elite teams they’ve been playing — and all the desperate, fighting-for-their-playoff-lives teams they’ve been playing — has been what they’ve needed to keep their game sharp as they wait for the playoffs to begin.
So with the Montreal Canadiens, who sit second from the bottom in the Eastern Conference standings, visiting Madison Square Garden on Sunday night, was there a possibility that the Rangers would suffer a letdown?
Nope.
Down a goal since the last minute of the first period, the Rangers methodically came back in the final 40 minutes, getting power-play goals from Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider, a magnificent end-to-end effort from Artemi Panarin for his 46th goal, and a second goal by Zibanejad to pull out a 5-2 win.
The victory — their third straight and eighth in the last nine games — was their 53rd of the season, which tied the franchise record for most in a single season set in 2014-15. The Rangers (53-21-4) have four games left in the regular season.
“I guess you don’t want to [tie],” Jacob Trouba said. “You’d rather break it . . . This franchise has been around a long time, and we still have work to do [this season]. But that would be something that’s pretty cool.’’
The win boosted the Rangers’ point total to 110, putting them three points ahead of idle Boston in the battle for the NHL’s best record and the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. It also kept them five points ahead of Carolina — a 3-0 winner over Columbus earlier in the day — for first place in the Metropolitan Division. The magic number for the Rangers to clinch the division title is four points.
“I think that our players are well aware of everything around us,’’ coach Peter Laviolette said when asked if Carolina’s continued winning spurs the Rangers to keep winning. “We don’t talk about that, I promise you. We don’t talk about any of that. We talk about playing the right way, [earning] two points.’’
They did all of this without winger Jack Roslovic, who was acquired at the trade deadline to be the right wing for the Zibanejad-Kreider line but was a healthy scratch.
At the morning skate, Laviolette suggested that Roslovic being scratched was merely part of the rotation he is using to make sure all 13 forwards get to play and stay sharp, with no one sitting out too long. Matt Rempe entered the lineup and Jimmy Vesey took Roslovic’s spot on the right of Kreider and Zibanejad.
Vesey set up Zibanejad’s second goal, which gave the Rangers a 4-2 lead at 16:56 of the third period.
The Rangers trailed 1-0 after Cole Caufield scored for the Canadiens with 29.5 seconds left in the first period. But Zibanejad’s first goal, an attempted pass to Kreider that hit Montreal defenseman Mike Matheson and bounced in behind goalie Cayden Primeau (41 saves), tied it at 12:31 of the second period.
Kreider tipped in a shot by Panarin to give the Rangers their first lead at 3:59 of the third period. Panarin then took a pass from Braden Schneider in his own zone, drove up the middle into the Montreal zone and passed to Alexis Lafreniere, who passed it back. Panarin caught the return, then tucked it around Primeau to make it 3-1 at 6:09.
Alex Newhook’s breakaway goal at 12:13 pulled Montreal within 3-2, but Zibanejad’s second goal made it 4-2. Lafreniere scored into an empty net with 1:15 remaining.
Trocheck: McDonald Award
Before the game, forward Vincent Trocheck was presented the Steven McDonald Extra Effort Award, as voted by the fans. The award, named after the late Steven McDonald, the police detective and devoted Rangers fan who was shot in the line of duty and paralyzed in 1986 and who died in 2017, is given to the player who “goes above and beyond the call of duty.’’
Said Trocheck, “Just getting to know what the award means over the last year-and-a-half, and hearing Conor [McDonald, Steven’s son] talk about it . . . to be presented with it is an honor.’’
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.
