Rangers get off to better start, cruise past Capitals

WASHINGTON — As angry as he was after the previous game, Gerard Gallant was just as happy after this one.

The Rangers’ coach had grown tired of watching his team get off to poor starts, which they had done in four of the previous five games. And so, when the Blueshirts took a three-goal lead and rolled to a 5-2 win over the Capitals on Sunday afternoon, it put Gallant in a great mood at the end of their 1-1-1 road trip.

Asked if this was the kind of start he was looking for, Gallant burst into laughter. “Exactly the start. And the finish,’’ he said. “No, it was a good, solid 60 minutes, so a real good way to finish our road trip.’’

Goals by K’Andre Miller and Alexis Lafreniere late in the first period and Kaapo Kakko at 1:00 of the second gave the Rangers a 3-0 lead before Washington got on the board on Dylan Strome’s goal at 13:23 of the second. Third-period goals by Vladimir Tarasenko and Mika Zibanejad offset a Washington goal by Aliaksei Protas.

Igor Shesterkin made 26 saves to earn his 35th win (35-13-7), which tied him for second in the league with former Ranger Alexandar Georgiev, who is 35-16-5 for Colorado.

The victory lifted the Rangers to 45-21-11, and pushed them to 101 points with five games remaining.

“It’s awesome,’’ Gallant said of crossing the 100-point mark for the second straight season. “It means you had a good season. But it doesn’t mean anything in two weeks. You start all over again [in the playoffs] and try and win. We’ve had two good years in a row and just want to keep getting better.’’

Miller, who opened the scoring at 13:17 of the first period when he skated freely down the middle of the slot to backhand in the rebound of Vincent Trocheck’s shot, said it was important for the Rangers to get off to a good start.

“It’s always good to come out strong,’’ he said. “I know we preach it a lot, playing a full 60 minutes. But I think when we bring it from the first 20 minutes of that first period, I think it’s pretty hard to stop us. I think if we do that day in and day out, we’re a really hard team to beat.’’

Just 2:02 after Miller’s goal, Lafreniere made it 2-0 with a spectacular goal, reminiscent of the one he scored against Detroit last season.

Filip Chytil stole the puck just outside the Washington blue line and dropped a pass to Lafreniere, who put the puck through his legs, spun away from a defender and backhanded a shot past goalie Darcy Kuemper (29 saves) for his 16th goal.

“I just had a lot of time, it felt like, and the [defenseman] was kind of flat-footed, and so I made a move on it,’’ Lafreniere said.

Coming off losses in the first two games of the road trip, 2-1 in New Jersey on Thursday and 3-2 in overtime in Buffalo on Friday, the Rangers needed a game to help them feel good about themselves again.

Gallant made some changes, using the lines that finished Friday’s game — Chris Kreider, Zibanejad and Patrick Kane on the first line and Artemi Panarin, Trocheck and Tarasenko on the second — along with the Kid Line of Lafreniere, Chytil and Kakko and the fourth line of Jimmy Vesey, Barclay Goodrow and Tyler Motte.

For the second straight game, the Kid Line was the best line, but the others did their parts. Panarin had three assists and Trocheck had two.

“Yeah, I thought they played real well,’’ Gallant said. “We did a lot of good things. We managed the puck as good as we’ve managed it in a long time. So, solid saves when we needed them, and I just thought it was a good team effort, a good team game.’’

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

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.