The Rangers passed the first test of the California trip with flying colors, defeating the Ducks 4-1. It wasn't perfect, but New York met every challenge presented by Anaheim, aided largely by the fine play of Henrik Lundqvist, to earn the victory. It's now 11 wins in 12 games, which last was accomplished in 1993-94, moving New York to within six points of Pittsburgh and five of the a Islanders with three games in hand.
While each member of the first line had a goal, it wasn't the play of Derick Brassard, Rick Nash and/or Mats Zuccarello that was the most impressive. In fact, you can argue that this line struggled during the contest. The same can be said about the Chris Kreider-Derek Stepan-Martin St. Louis trip. While there were moments, it was inconsistent, though defensively they held their own against the Ryan Gelzlaf and Ryan Kesler lines, bolstered by the Ryan McDonagh-Dan Girardi duo. The Carl Hagelin-Kevin Hayes line was okay, though Hayes had some rough moments in his zone.
In fact, it was the fourth line, led by Dominic Moore and especially J.T. Miller that was the best throughout the game. Miller just makes plays, growing daily in front of our eyes. On the first goal, he showed tremendous patience waiting for Brassard to come off the bench as the extra attached on the delayed power play. It would have been easy to give up the puck or make an ill-advised pass, but Miller was able to wait, hold the puck and hit Brassard with a cross-ice feed. Granted, it likely was a shot that Ilya Bryzgalov should have saved, as whatever screen was thee was long gone when the puck was shot, but it beat him for a 1-0.
The second and third goals were due to good defensive reads and poor passes by Anaheim. On the first, Sami Vatanen just shot it up the center of the ice. Kevin Klein made a good read, stole the puck and his shot deflected off Nash past Bryz for his 25th of the season. Nursing a 2-1 lead and trying to hold off a pressuring Ducks squad, the top line line had good not great pressure. But a poor clear around the boards was easily stolen by Zucc, who blasted it short side past Bryz, who left too much room at the post. The empty netter came after another good play by Miller, who took a hit to move the puck to D. Moore, who found the back of the net.
Overall, a solid team win, but major kudos again to Hank, who stood tall, especially in the first and second periods when Anaheim really charged. His reward is a day off with Cam Talbot between the pipes tonight in LA. The lineup should be the same as John Moore didn't do much to lose his spot in the lineup, though as I said yesterday, it would not shock me if Tanner Glass got in tonight.
The Rangers will have to deal with the emotions of playing a game where they saw their season end last year. A bounce here or there and maybe the script would have been different, but 15 of the Blueshirts wee on the team last year when they lost the Cup to LA. A win tonight won't do much to ease the pain of that defeat, but it will keep the mojo going as New York tries at a minimum to maintain their current spot and ascend up the standings.
The chant for tonight is Beat LA!!! Beat LA!!! Beat LA!!!