The Rangers completed their two-game "Western" road trip with a 4-1 win over the Coyotes on Saturday. Antti Raanta was excellent throughout and missed a shutout by 4.6 seconds while New York had four different goal scorers. The Rangers head back home to face the Hurricanes on Tuesday.
Good but not great. Sound familiar? Unfortunately, it has become the mantra of the season. But despite that truism, the team is 10-2-2; a 14-game mark which has been matched in franchise history only in ’71 and ’90. I have already said better an ugly one than a pretty loss. You would like to see better play throughout an entire game, but hard to quibble with 10-2-2.
I thought Emerson Etem and that whole top line was noticeable. Etem used his speed to create chances and his size to cause turnovers, resulting in opportunities. His screen in front of Anders Lindback resulted in Kevin Hayes' PPG. When Rick Nash is back - likely Tuesday - Etem probably goes back to the bench, but he finally had a game that should give him and the coaching staff confidence.
The Kreider-Stepan-Miller line were solid last night. Kreider used his speed to create chances, resulting in a weak third goal allowed by Mike Smith. That play came about by good work defensively by Stepan, enabling Kreider to come down 1:1 with the d-man and beat Smith. That was D resulting in O, which is an AV hallmark.
Similarly, for the Miller goal. Good play by Dan Boyle - yes, you can say Boyle and good play in the same sentence - in his own zone to pivot away from two forecheckers. Kreider lost it on the rush, Stepan kind of whiffed but by doing so, he created room for Miller to swipe at the puck. Granted he mostly missed but the deflection off his leg went through Smith for a weak goal.
Raanta has only played three games but has looked good in each one. Yesterday, he came up big when needed in what was a bit more of a wide open contest than we expected. Raanta robbed Martin Hanzal with a glove save on his redirection early second, bailing out his D. Then early in the third, he made a second great save on Tobias Rieder. Beyond the great saves, he has been very steady. Little wasted motion, in the right position to make the save and spectacularly when necessary.
As Carp wrote, "the power play has scored in consecutive games, and in five of eight. Despite very few opportunities (30th in the league for the season." I actually thought the PP looked good, especially the second unit. It's amazing they aren't drawing penalties, but hopefully they get more chances, which will require going harder to the net and through the neutral zone. If they move the puck as they did last night, against a decent short-handed group, it bodes well for down the road.