The Rangers continued their stretch of hot play, picking up their sixth straight win with a 3-2 victory over Chicago on Saturday night. New York has now won 10 of their last 11 and sit one point behind Washington for first place in the Metro Division with a pair of games in hand. Alexandar Georgiev stopped 25 of 27 shots while standing in for Igor Shesterkin.
Game recap:
A few thoughts: 1) Overall: a solid but not great game. Lots of offensive zone time, but little on the sustained attack. Chicago clogged the neutral zone, preventing any breakouts up the middle, forcing New York to go tic-tac-toe or dump in and chase. The team did a solid job cycling the puck and being patient, though did suffer a few counter attacks, many of which were broken up by blocked shots or sticks in the right place. In addition, solid recovery for the most part by the forwards and blue line when trapped down low.
Concerning me was the blind, soft passes in the defensive zone while trying to find a teammate to create a counter attack. Looked like close to a half a dozen turnovers, resulting in opportunities for Chicago. A better team might have taken advantage of those, creating a different end result to the game.
2) Artemi Panarin/Ryan Strome: have ridiculous chemistry. Part of that is from playing together. but a portion clearly can't be just because of that. Rather, the talent level of each, especially Panarin, helps foster that relationship and production.
All the concerns about Panarin's "slow" start can be thrown away. He has four multi-point games in his last six and is now up to seven goals and 19 assists in 23 games. To me, he still lacks a little of the jump we have seen in the past. But his ability to maintain possession of the puck and create time and space coupled with his physical strength have been the drivers for his hot streak.
Strome has registered at least one point in nine of his last 10 games. Since the start of November, Strome has four goals, 12 assists and 29 shots in 14 contests. The Ontario native is up to 18 points (six on the power play), 40 shots and a plus-6 rating through 19 games as the line of Panarin-Strome-Dryden Hunt has been the team's best in this streak.
3) Georgiev - solid enough. Aided by a pair of posts and pair of crossbars to save his goals-against average. Looked to be struggling to find the puck in the first period. Made a key save off his helmet to blunt an attack. Settled in a bit better as the game wore on. Could start both games against Chicago and Colorado this week on back-to-back nights if the team doesn't want to play Adam Huska. This is a big chance for Georgiev, he did enough in game one to inspire some confidence in him.
4) Mika Zibanejad - my prediction of him scoring was a dud. Didn't have a great game, though made a handful of extremely nice passes to create chances. Needs to be more selfish and look to shoot. But confidence begets confidence and right now, he looks to have little of that. I think once he gets one, the floodgates will open.