Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad score two goals each as Rangers win sixth straight
New York Rangers' Mika Zibanejad celebrates his goal against the Vancouver Canucks during the first period on Wednesday. Credit: AP/DARRYL DYCK
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — This should have been an easy one to kick off the Western Canada portion of the Rangers’ road trip. Playing a Vancouver team Wednesday that traded its captain, has started its rebuild, and was starting a rookie goalie making his NHL debut, the Rangers should have gone through the motions, collected two points, and moved on.
But it wasn’t easy at all. The Rangers took control early, but they never could shake the lowly Canucks, until Mika Zibanejad scored his second goal of the game, into an empty net with 1:34 remaining, to seal a 6-4 victory and extend the Rangers’ win streak to six games.
And afterward, the Rangers’ message was simple: Hey, we won. That’s all that matters.
“A win is win,’’ said Artemi Panarin, who followed up the first four-goal game of his career Saturday in Carolina with two more goals, which helped the Rangers take a 3-2 lead in the first period.
“Of course everyone wants to play better, but I don’t know, maybe having four days off, or something [explains it].’’
The Rangers (32-14-8) started the four-game road trip in Carolina Saturday and then came straight to Vancouver, where they were off Sunday and practiced Monday and Tuesday, trying to get their bodies adjusted to the Pacific Time Zone. In the end, it may have been that spending so much time on the road between games dulled their game a little.
“It wasn’t a perfect game,’’ Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said.
“It was a bit of a sloppy game. But we had some really nice goals and made some good plays. And I think we were in control, [and] we felt good about that. But we can be better. And you know, when you come out here and you sit for four days before you play another game, it’s just a little rust. And I don’t think the guys were sharp tonight.’’
Chris Kreider and K’Andre Miller scored the other goals for the Rangers. For Kreider, his goal was the 251st of his career, moving him past Mark Messier into seventh place on the franchise’s all-time scoring list.
“Mark Messier’s a Hall of Famer, obviously a great player, one of the great players of all time, so it’s good for Kreids,’’ Gallant said.
The win improved the Rangers’ record since Dec. 5 to 21-4-3, and it moved within three points of the Devils for second place in the Metropolitan Division.
Curtis Lazar’s goal, originally credited to Dakota Joshua, gave the Canucks the lead at 4:52, but 59 seconds later, Zibanejad tied the score with his 28th goal of the season, extending his goal-scoring streak to five games.
Zibanejad took a pass from Adam Fox at center ice, drove into the Vancouver zone, faked a shot, and then slipped a wrister between the pads of goalie Arturs Silovs (22 saves).
One minute, 12 seconds later, Panarin’s fifth goal in two games gave the Rangers their first lead, but Vancouver tied it at 2 on a power-play goal by former Ranger J.T. Miller. Panarin’s second goal — which was originally credited to newcomer Niko Mikkola — untied it at 15:36 and Kreider’s backdoor tap-in of a Zibanejad pass put the Rangers up 4-2 50 seconds into the second period.
But Mikkola took a holding penalty — his fourth minor penalty in his three games since coming over from St. Louis in the Vladimir Tarasenko trade last Thursday — and Conor Garland’s goal, with four seconds left in the power play, pulled the Canucks within 4-3.
K’Andre Miller’s wrist shot from just inside the blue line made its way through a maze of bodies and beat Silovs to put the Rangers up 5-3 at 13:28, but Andrei Kuzmenko made the Rangers sweat when he beat Shesterkin with a long shot at 8:51 of the third to cut it to 5-4.
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.
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