Best Celebration Ever
The Rangers overcame a rough second period in which they were completely outplayed by the Bruins, giving up a lot of shots and a goal against, and managed to grab a late victory at The Garden. Jesper Fast deflected a shot by Keith Yandle with 1:42 left in the third period to seal the deal for the Rangers in their 2-1 win.
Things looked bleak for the Rangers, who were simply not playing well at all to start the game. However they woke up in the third period, getting a goal on their first shift of the period from Derick Brassard before Fast’s winner late. Henrik Lundqvist made 32 saves, outdueling Tuukka Rask, who made 29 saves.
The game itself was rather boring, with both teams limiting controlled zone entries and forcing a lot of dump and chase hockey. In games like these, you hope for sustained pressure when it counts, and the Rangers got that. Not the prettiest win, but sometimes you just need the two points for confidence reasons.
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:
Bruins 1, Rangers 0
Chris Kreider turned the puck over in the neutral zone to Zdeno Chara, who promptly got the puck to Jimmy Hayes with some room to enter the zone. Hayes took a stride or two and put a perfect wrister past Lundqvist for the goal. I don’t think Kevin Klein or Keith Yandle played this wrong. They forced the shot off the turnover from a relatively safe location, considering it’s Hank. The shot just beat him.
Rangers 1, Bruins 1
Ryan McDonagh made a good pinch to keep the zone, where Mats Zuccarello collected the puck and cut to the net. Torey Krug was on his knees the entire time, making for an easy pass lane to Derick Brassard, who roofed it.
Rangers 2, Bruins 1
Derek Stepan started this with a controlled zone entry, and the Rangers were able to get some sustained pressure in the zone. Yandle put a shot towards the net that Jesper Fast deflected brilliantly by Rask for the winner.
Shot Attempts
This game really was boring to watch for a while. It wasn’t until the second period when Boston started getting sustained pressure while the Rangers ever very close to flatlining. That’s how the third initially started, even though the Rangers scored in that time span, and it wasn’t until there were ten minutes left in the game that the Rangers started really pressing. Looks like they really wanted those two points in regulation.
Scoring Chances
Scoring chances tell a different story, as the Rangers were really limited to the outside for most of the game. To be fair, the Rangers did a decent job of limiting chances against, but the disparity looks so huge because the Blueshirts couldn’t get anything going until very late.
Individual Corsi
This is reflective of the first two charts we saw. J.T. Miller had a strong game, and Ryan McDonagh had a solid game as well. Interesting to see him so high up on this chart, since he wasn’t paired with Dan Girardi at all this game.
Shot Locations
Much like what we saw above, the Rangers didn’t generate much from high danger areas on the ice. They did a halfway decent job of limiting attempts by the Bruins, but they’ve certainly played better games.
Shift Chart
I think this is the first game where Girardi didn’t get one single shift with McDonagh at even strength. It’s really weird to say that actually. Girardi got hurt and missed the second half of the game though. That threw the defense matchups into the wind. Other than that, not much to notice on the shift chart from this game.
The Rangers are now 3-2-1 during this very difficult nine-game stretch. The overall process has been getting better, although it was pretty rough last night. Sometimes though, you just need a win like this, where you come from behind and hold on for two points. Perhaps this kickstarts a run back to what we hope and expect them to be.
Share:
More About:Game Wrap-ups