Riding a strong defensive effort, some timely scoring, and a solid performance from Henrik Lundqvist between the pipes, the Rangers defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-0 Wednesday night at CONSOL Energy Center in the first meeting this season between these Metropolitan Division rivals.
The Rangers have now won four straight games, solidifying their hold on second place in the division, beating a Penguins team that had won six of its last seven contests under new head coach Mike Sullivan, the former Rangers assistant.
Lundqvist appeared in the 666th regular season game of his career, tying Mike Richter for most appearances by a Rangers goaltender and for most career appearances by a goaltender with a single team in NHL history.
The shutout was his third this season and 58 of his career. Four of those career shutouts have come at the expense of the Penguins. Lundqvist made 34 saves Wednesday.
“Coming into this building we knew we were playing a really good team whose top players have been playing really well, and I thought it was a great challenge for us,” stated Lundqvist after the game. “You have to play a smart game against this team because they are so fast. Today we got it done. It’s great. (Shutouts) don’t come easy for me these days, and the guys played great in front of me, so it was fun to battle together. It was a really good road win.”
A big key to the victory was the fact that Lundqvist and his teammates shut down Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby on Wednesday, which was no small feat considering he brought an 11-game point-scoring streak and a seven-game goal-scoring streak into play. Crosby had a -3 plus/minus rating Wednesday, as well.
“I think we did a really good job in the neutral zone against (Crosby), our forwards did a good job not giving him too much time and space,” explained defenseman Marc Staal. “It really us (the defensemen) out. It was a big key for us.”
Though the Penguins had a distinct territorial advantage in the first period, and repeatedly forced the Rangers into turning the puck over in the defensive and neutral zones, it was New York that would score the only goal over the opening 20 minutes.
Shortly after a failed power play opportunity, the Rangers broke through on a Kevin Hayes goal at the 8:34 mark of the first. Tanner Glass picked up his second assist of the season, firing a low, hard shot off Marc-Andre Fleury’s pads from left wing, setting up a juicy rebound which Hayes collected and calmly flicked into the cage after drifting to his right in the slot. The goal–which was rifled under Daniel Paille who jumped up in the air to get out of the way of the shot–was the eighth this season for Hayes, and his first in 13 games.
“(Glass) had a good shot on net and there was a rebound and luckily the puck was there with a lot of commotion, and I was able to toe-drag it and there was an empty net,” described Hayes of his goal.
Three minutes prior to the Hayes goal the Rangers had a golden chance to score when Oscar Lindberg’s quick one-timer from between the circles–following a tic-tac-toe passing sequence with Keith Yandle and Hayes–was denied by the quick right pad of Fleury.
The Penguins controlled most of the rest of the first-period action, though they only outshot New York 10-7. The Rangers did block 11 shots in that opening period, making up for many of their defensive miscues. Dan Boyle alone blocked four shots over the first 20 minutes.
Blocking shots was a major them in this win for the Rangers. They ended up with 25 blocks on Wednesday as Boyle and Dan Girardi each were credited with five.
“We did a lot of good hard work in our end,” stated Staal.
The second period settled into a tighter checking affair, and the Rangers managed the puck better in all three zones. Still Pittsburgh had several excellent chances to score while outshooting the Rangers 11-6.
Lundqvist stopped each shot that came his way, including an impressive sequence midway through the second when he twice denied Phil Kessel and also got a blocker on a Kris Letang bomb from right wing. Later on in the period Lundqvist made another stellar blocker save on a heavy Letang shot through traffic.
While Lundqvist was exceptionally good, he also caught some breaks, most notably when Conor Sheary broke in alone after splitting the Rangers defense 2:25 into the second, but fired his backhand shot off the crossbar. The Penguins also shanked several open chances during the first two periods, sending shots high and wide of their intended mark. It also didn’t hurt that Crosby did not record a single shot on goal over the first 40 minutes.
The Rangers rewarded Lundqvist for his strong play and doubled their lead at 4:21 of the third period. Dominic Moore–who was on ice to take a defensive zone face off–scored off a 2-on-1 rush with Chris Kreider after accepting a head-man pass from Derek Stepan. Moore chose to shoot after defenseman Derrick Pouliot took away the pass option, and Moore rifled his fifth goal of the season bar down to put New York up 2-0.
“The guys who are usually doing the dirty work are the ones who made some big plays (offensively) for us tonight,” Staal said, referring to Moore and Glass among others.
Pittsburgh’s best chance to get back in the game came at the 10 minute mark of the third period when Kreider was whistled for an interference penalty. However the Rangers killed it off with Lundqvist making one outstanding save on Kessel’s slam dunk attempt at the right post.
Mats Zuccarello very nearly made it 3-0 a few minutes later, but his snap shot rang off the post. However Jesper Fast backhanded a long shot into the empty net with 1:31 remaining in regulation to put the exclamation point on this impressive victory.
The Rangers will look to make it five wins in a row when they return home Friday night to host the Los Angeles Kings at Madison Square Garden.
Jim Cerny
BlueshirtsUnited.com
