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Game 72: STL 4 NYR 3, OT, Zib and Kreider show stay on a roll |
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The Rangers fell to the Blues 4-3 in overtime Saturday night. After falling behind 1-0 and 2-1, New York rallied twice to tie the game, then took a 3-2 lead. Alex Pietrangelo evened the game at three with his second of the game on the power play. Jake Allen stoned Chris Kreider in the first 20 seconds of overtime and Brayden Schenn won the game with a spin-o-rama move around John Gilmour followed by his beating Alexandar Georgiev.
Game recap:
New York was markedly outplayed in the first, as St. Louis posted a 16-2 shot advantage that may not fully reflect the Blues’ dominance. The Rangers were fortunate to be down 1-0 on Pietangelo’s first of the contest but evened the game 42 seconds into the second period. Jesper Fast’s shot from the half-wall deflected off Mika Zibanejad, as he crossed in front of the net, over Allen’s shoulder short-side into the net. St. Louis regained the lead less than two minutes later on a Nikita Soshnikov goal resulting from a drop pass just inside the offense zone and partially screen blast getting past Georgiev. Mats Zuccarello tied it up again at 12:07 beating Allen and less than 2:30 later, Zib scored his second of the game off a sublime backhand, blind feed from Kreider.
Zibanejad scored twice for the second straight game, marking the first time in his career he’s scored multiple goals in consecutive contests. Continuing his late-season rise, Zib has seven points in his last three games and 10 points in his last six games. To contrast this hot streak with his prior performance, In his prior 16 games, Zib totaled just four points, all of which were goals.
Similarly, CK20 is on a major roll, posting six points in the past two games and 10 points in the Rangers last nine games. The weight he lost while out after surgery seems to have made him quicker while he also appears to have found a increased passion for the game. Kreider is signed for two more years at $4.625 million. When he plays like he has since returning, that figure looks like a bargain as he looks like a prototypical power forward who also has a burst like few others.
The Blues tied the game 3-3 at 5:15 of the third on Pietrangelo’s power-play goal, his second tally of the night. Georgiev, making his third straight start, stopped 29 of 32 shots in regulation before Schenn scored the game-winner 1:02 into overtime. Hard to fault the rookie goalie on that goal or on Pietrangelo’s two tallies due to traffic and screens in front of the net. He possibly could have stopped Soshnikov‘a goal but that was a cannon shot.
In continuing what I said last week, here is the run down for the last 16 games of the season. After losing to Winnipeg 3-0 on Tuesday, Tampa 5-3 on Thursday and Florida 4-3 in a shootout Saturday night, New York defeated Carolina 6-3 last night tonight and Pittsburgh 4-3 in overtime Wednesday. As noted above, St. Louis defeated New York 4-3 on Saturday. The Rangers have contests this week against Columbus and Pittsburgh, after which it's Washington (home-and-road), Tampa (last home game) and Carolina (road) to close out March. In April, New York faces the Devils, Islanders and Flyers, all on the road.
In the race to the bottom or a potentially higher draft pick, the Rangers - or at least the players - have failed to get that message. Since the sell off, New York is 5-2-2 while their competitors for the lower spot continue to lose. The Islanders 4-3 loss to the Hurricanes on Sunday dropped their record to 1-8-4 in their last 13 contests while St. Louis, who helped the Rangers’ cause by defeating the Blueshirts on Saturday, hurt that cause by rallying to defeat Chicago 5-4 yesterday. Carolina is now two points above the Rangers while the Islanders are two points behind the Blueshirts and Blackhawks are three points shy of New York with the Rangers having a game in hand.
New York Rangers Blogger • 
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