Lundqvist bails out Rangers in third straight win

AP Photo/Frank Franklin II

The Rangers didn’t look great last night, but got very timely goals when they had opportunities and received some stellar goaltending from Henrik Lundqvist to help secure the win. Hank was on fire last night, making very difficult saves look routine and almost singlehandedly keeping the Rangers in the lead throughout the game. It was another masterful performance from The King.

Aside from Hank the timely goals were the story, as the Blueshirts capitalized on a trio of Kings turnovers. Scoring on all three of these plays proved to be critical, as the Rangers struggled to generate sustained offense all night long. The overall team defense was not very good either, allowing a number of chances that Hank stopped. Good teams find ways to win games like these, but it’s not a performance you want to see consistently.

On to the goals:

Rangers 1, Kings 0

Nick Shore was unable to handle the breakout pass with Brandon Pirri pressuring him on the forecheck, and lost the puck to him. Pirri beat Zatkoff five hole for the goal, one that Zatkoff likely wants back.

Rangers 2, Kings 0

Alec Martinez couldn’t handle the Jordan Nolan pass, which gave Dan Girardi room to make a nice outlet pass to the other blue line to Derek Stepan. Stepan fed Matt Puempel, who buried it.

Rangers 2, Kings 1

Jordan Nolan took a very hard shot from the outside that Hank got a piece of, but not all. Hank will say he should have had this. Looked like Klein, who shouldn’t have tried to block this from way out there, got a piece too. Tough to tell.

Rangers 3, Kings 1

Adam Clendening made a soft dump in, that Zatkoff came out to play. J.T. Miller forced Zatkoff into a bad turnover, then made a beautiful flip to Mats Zuccarello, who buried it.

Rangers 3, Kings 2

Trevor Lewis’ shot beat Hank five-hole after he had lost his stick in the 6-on-5 flurry. Looked like the puck bounced. If he has his stick, he makes that save.

Even Strength Corsi

At one point in the game, Sam said something along the lines of, “The ice has tilted the last few minutes. The Kings have been generating a lot of chances.” Counterpoint: The Rangers allowed a ton of chances all game, and the ice was always tilted in the Kings’ favor. This is ugly.

Side note: The scoring chances chart wasn’t loading last night. But I’m guessing it looked a lot like this one.

The Rangers found a way to win, which is always a good thing. However this is not the type of performance you want to see from the skaters. Hank was magnificent though, and he bailed the team out last night.