Rangers rally to tie in third, then beat Hurricanes in a shootout
Rick Nash scored in the third round of the shootout and Henrik Lundqvist stopped all three attempts as the Rangers snapped a three-game losing streak with a 2-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes Thursday night at Madison Square Garden.
Mats Zuccarello and Alexander Semin were stopped in the first round. Lee Stempniak was denied in the second, as was Chris Terry. After Nash scored, Lundqvist denied Ryan Murphy for the victory. The Rangers are 2-3; the Hurricanes are 0-2-2.
Derick Brassard, Nash's former teammate in Columbus, said: "When your third shooter is Nash and he's got six goals so far, you're pretty confident. He's hot right now." Nash improved to 30-for-79 (38 percent) in his career in shootout attempts.
With the Rangers trailing 1-0 in the third period, Brassard scored his third of the season, tipping Zuccarello's deflection of Dan Girardi's shot past Anton Khudobin at 9:40.
With 6:37 left, Jay Harrison flipped the puck over the benches in a clearing attempt but was called for delay of game. It gave the Rangers their fifth power play of the game, but they could not connect and are 0-for-16 this season.
Coach Alain Vigneault called timeout with 3:16 to play, and Nash and Zuccarello came close to ending it, but just missed.
One game after they fired 43 shots at Islanders goaltender Jaroslav Halak, the Rangers managed 31 in regulation against Khudobin and the tight-checking Hurricanes, who broke a scoreless tie at 16:53 of the second period when Terry's wrister from above the left circle deflected in off the stick of Lundqvist (29 saves). It was Terry's third goal of the season.
The goal came after the Rangers couldn't solve Khudobin on their fourth power play, during which the Blueshirts tried too many passes through the Carolina trap. The Madison Square Garden crowd booed the Rangers off the ice after 40 minutes.
Vigneault, trying to generate more offense, had shaken up the lines during the second period and in the third, moving Martin St. Louis back to right wing after he played center for the first four games. Rookie Anthony Duclair had just one shift in the third period. Carolina also had dominated in the faceoff circle.
The Rangers killed off the final 1:09 of Marc Staal's boarding penalty to open the third period and had some jump, and the crowd came alive again. Then, in a scuffle behind Khudobin, Tim Gleason punched Staal in the face with his gloves still on, but each player received two minutes for roughing at 5:52.
Khudobin, who didn't have to make many difficult saves in the first half of the game, then stopped Nash, who had his best shift of the game, although his goal-scoring streak ended at five in four games. Lundqvist said of Nash: "The way he scores, the way he works, the determination, it's great to see."
Carolina entered banged up. The Hurricanes were missing two centers -- brothers Eric and Jordan Staal -- along with Jeff Skinner, who scored 33 goals last season, forward Patrick Dwyer and defenseman Andrej Sekera. But the Rangers still needed to rally in the third.
Said Ryan McDonagh: "Everybody's trying to get some confidence here. Sometimes you need these nail-biter games, to come from behind the way we did and find a way to get everybody to settle in and play."