The Rangers extended their win streak to six games with a 4-2 win over the Oilers on Saturday. Edmonton has been in the area for the past week and finished their metropolitan trip on a losing note after defeating the Islanders and Devils in overtime. Following Saturday's win, New York is now in the midst of a lull in their schedule. The Rangers' next game is Wednesday against Chicago, a span of five days between contests, and overall, including Saturday's contest, New York has just four games in a span of 14 days
Game recap:
MSG post-game:
The Rangers didn't start the game particularly well, but as the MSG post-game points out, Henrik Lundqvist carried the team until they settled into the contest. Rick Nash gave New York on 1-0 lead, putting the puck into a wide-open net, following a beautiful dish by Kevin Hayes, who faked the shot, forcing Cam Talbot to commit, opening the net. Mats Zuccarello's outlet pass bounced off bodies at center ice, ending up on Hayes' stick in center ice, creating the chance. Jesse Puljujarvi tied it just over four minutes later, following a steal in the offensive zone.
Connor McDavid, in the only time he was real noticeable in the game (more on that below), scored on the power play off a scramble on front to give Edmonton a 2-1 lead. But the Rangers' power play gave New York a 3-2 lead after the second. Pavel Buchnevich converted on a hard cross-ice pass by Kevin Shattenkirk in the slot, after first great patience to maintain possession of the puck and then a great feed from Mats Zuccarello to 'Kirk, to even the score. The goal was Buchnevich's seventh goal and 11th point in his last nine games. "I knew when Mats [Zuccarello] gave me that pass through the seam Pavel was coming off the bench," said Shattenkirk, who extended his point streak to seven games with the assist. "I could kind of see him out of the side of my eye and knew he was going to have a good one-time there."
Breakdown of Power Play Success:
Dave Maloney on the MSG post-game show spoke about instincts. Shattenkirk has a passing instinct, knowing when to dish the puck. Buch has an offensive instinct of when to shoot and how to find open ice. The combination of the two has been deadly, especially on the power play.
The second PPG came after a silly elbowing penalty by Patrick Maroon, who was entangled with Ryan McDonagh and elbowed him in the face. The goal was set up by a great play along the boards by David Desharnais, who was able to get to the puck on the boards, take the hit from Zack Kassian and softly put the puck up the boards, where McDonagh captured it just before it came out of the zone. The captain made a blind cross ice pass to Skjei, who found Nash cross-ice for the deflection to the right side of the crease past Talbot for his second of the game.
"We knew there would be a chance it'd be open," Nash said. "Me and Brady talked about it. He made a great pass and you just try and build a wall with your skates and your stick and hope it hits something. When you get a goalie like Cam, we know him pretty well, he challenges hard, it leaves that back door play open."
New York has registered at least one power play in three of the last four games. They also have a power-play goal in five of their last seven, going 9-for-23, and 10 of 18. As the team finds the rest of the game, the success on the man-advantage is carrying New York. Eventually that will slow, but hopefully by then, the other aspects of the Rangers' game will be there.
In the third, New York controlled possession a good portion of the period. Edmonton did come on late, but the Rangers maintained their composure and Lundqvist was their when needed. Mr. empty netter himself, Michael Grabner, sealed the win with his fourth empty net tally of the year and eighth in his last two season.
In the win, Jimmy Vesey's mouth was cut by Kassian's skate. Fortunately, Kassian got him more with the boot than the skate blade, or the damage would have been a lot worse than two teeth stuck in his cut lip. Vesey, injured in the second period, played the third with a full cage on his helmet and should be in the lineup Wednesday.
That's hockey #SorryMa pic.twitter.com/oeYJg6FgfV
— Jimmy Vesey (@19Vesey) November 11, 2017
Marking McDavid:
Heading into the game, one much talked aspect was how would the Rangers guard McDavid. The end result was pretty good, since other than the PPG, he and his linemate, right winger Leon Draisaitl, were mainly neutralized. Much of the dirty work was done by the Hayes line.
A lot has been written and discussed as to how Hayes is not a shutdown center. Saturday he was that an more. As Larry Brooks noted, Hayes with Nash and Zuccarello plus the McDonagh-Nick Holden defense pair, saw the majority of action against McDavid and Draisaitl. McDavid played 20:40 of five-on-five. Hayes, on against him for 11:40, had a 13-6 Corsi edge that translated to 68.4 percent for the afternoon. The rest of the matchup quintet had similar numbers versus the Edmonton dynamic duo.
Brooks also noted that the alternate match lines centered by Mika Zibanejad — between either usual wingers Chris Kreider and Pavel Buchnevich, or in the third period, between Michael Grabner and Jesper Fast — had equally impressive results. Three different lines went against McDavid, other than the Desharnais, Vesey and J.T. Miller trio, But it was the Hayes line that did the heavy lifting.
Nash's comments spell out the keys to their success:
“Playing against a guy like him, we had three keys,… said Nash, “No turnovers in the neutral zone [even though we did have three of four], get the puck in deep, and always have the third man high. It’s not one guy or two or even just the three forwards. It’s five guys being smart in what we do. Actually, I think as a team we played a smart game.…
Five guys being smart. For all the rightful criticism of the defense this year, the forwards have been just as culpable. Failing to cover the slot or in the wrong position following handoffs in their own zone, makes the defense look bad. But the forwards were the ones just as guilty - if not more so - than the blue liners. If the five man units can play as they did Saturday, New York should be able to build on and continue their recent success.
Defensively, Holden played another solid game with McDonagh. Kampfer was shaky at times, but still saw third period action and was a bit better late in the contest than early. With three full days between games, it will be interesting to see if Brendan Smith is in the top-six in practice. Same with just four contests in 14 days, as AV could use the time to experiment or work on aspects of the team's play that need improvement.
New York is wrapping up one of the tougher stretches of their schedule. The comeback win over Las Vegas, strong team performance in victory over Tampa and resiliency versus Florida Saturday got it off to a good beginning. Monday’s win over Columbus continued the hot streak, which was extended Wednesday at home against Boston and continued at MSG on Saturday versus Edmonton. Saturday's game marked 13 home contests in the first 18 matches of the season and now New York has road contests upcoming versus Chicago and Columbus but then play four of five games at MSG.