Rangers right the ship, blank Sharks in strong showing

AP Photo/Frank Franklin II

It had been a rough three games prior to last night, capped with a pretty terrible overtime loss to the Devils. But the Rangers righted the ship by beating the San Jose Sharks by a score of 4-0. The Rangers played their best game of the season, limiting a potent Sharks offense to only a few quality chances throughout. The offense chipped in three goals, including one on the powerplay. Their penalty kill was perfect, including a killed 5-on-3.

More importantly, the defense showed up to play. Led by top pairing Ryan McDonagh and Kevin Klein, the Rangers really did a good job shutting down the Sharks.  But it was their ability to finally chip in on offense and start rushes that really stood out. The defense had a hand in all three goals, something they need to do more consistently.

And then there was Antti Raanta, who was brilliant in this game, getting his first Rangers win and the shutout while making 22 saves.

As always, you can view the full videos on our video page here. All GIFs are on nyrgifs.com, filtered under the date of the game. On to the goals:

Rangers 1, Sharks 0

Marc Staal started and finished this goal. First he made a nice outlet pass from the defensive zone to Jesper Fast, who gained the zone. Fast dumped it to the opposite corner, where Derick Brassard picked up the puck. Brass did a good job protecting the puck before finding Staal cross ice at the point. Staal wristed it on net, and the puck looked like it hit someone before going over Martin Jones’ shoulder.

Rangers 2, Sharks 0

The Rangers finally got their second powerplay goal of the year off a good cycle from Rick Nash. Nash collected the puck along the near boards from Dan Boyle, and then he got it to Mats Zuccarello low. Nash then cut to the net as Zucc circled to the top of the near circle. With Nash screening Jones, Zucc snuck a shot off Jones’ arm, off the power, and in.

Rangers 3, Sharks 0

After losing a defensive zone faceoff, Fast jumped out to block a shot from the point, which resulted in Keith Yandle getting the puck behind the net. Yandle got the puck to Chris Kreider along the boards, and then Kreider hit Fast across the ice with that pass-behind-off-the-boards-to-spring-a-breakaway that Kreider loves to receive. This time he gifted the pass, and Fast got a little lucky as his shot went off Jones’ stick and under his pad.

Rangers 4, Sharks 0

Marc Staal made a pretty solid play in the defensive zone, breaking up a Sharks rush. He poked the puck out of harms way right to Viktor Stalberg, who burned down the wing, cut to the slot, and snuck one through Jones’ wickets.

Score Adjusted Corsi

Courtesy of hockeystats.ca

The Rangers controlled the score-adjusted play, although it wasn’t by a wide margin until the third period. Score adjusted Corsi is important to note as it eliminates “score effects,” otherwise known as turtling. You’ll see in the chart below that the Rangers really didn’t get many scoring chances in the third (just five), but they scored on two of them. They took their calculated risks to pad the lead, but they really worked on shutting down San Jose.

Scoring Chances

Courtesy of war-on-ice

This actually works with what we saw in the game. The Rangers really gave up a decent amount of scoring chances in the first, but came away with the lead anyway. It wasn’t until the second period that they really started shutting it down on defense and limiting the Sharks chances. That sharp uptick in the third, after the Stalberg goal, is normal for end-of-game. Worth noting that this is not score-adjusted.

Individual Corsi

Courtesy of war-on-ice

That McDonagh/Klein pairing had a solid game throughout, as did the Nash/Stepan/Zuccarello line. It’s what you expect from your top line. This chart needs to be taken with a grain of salt, as it isn’t score adjusted in what is considered a blowout game. I did notice that Yandle/Girardi had pockets of time that they were pinned in the defensive zone though.

Shift Chart

Courtesy of war-on-ice

Alain Vigneault didn’t do much line shuffling here. Once the game got to 3-0, there was no reason to really bench any lines either. Normal shift chart.

Shot Locations

Courtesy of war-on-ice

This looked a lot worse after the first period, when the Rangers’ chances were all outside the danger areas, and the Sharks’ chances were all in the danger area. But as the Rangers took control of the game, the shot locations moved towards the Rangers favor.

This is what we’ve come to expect from the Rangers on the second of back-to-backs. Very rarely do they give a poor effort two nights in a row. The Rangers are now off until Thursday, when ex-Ranger Anthony Duclair comes to town.