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The Rangers came into last night’s game against Carolina with just one win in 2019. They changed that in a big way, completely dismantling the Canes with a 6-2 victory. This was a kid and trade bait dominated victory, which bodes well for the future and for the trade deadline. Pavel Buchnevich and Tony DeAngelo each had a pair of goals, with Boo Nieves adding two assists. Mats Zuccarello had three assists to continue his tear. Mika Zibanejad (2 goals, 2 assists) and Chris Kreider (2 assists) also contributed in big ways.

Let’s not forget Henrik Lundqvist, who of course needed to make a ton of saves. The King stopped 34 of 36 shots, many from high danger areas, to help secure the win. The win puts a wrench in the Canes desire to make the playoffs, which is nice. It’s been a while since we’ve been spoilers this early on. It’s weird. And hey, the kids produced!

Rangers 1, Canes 0

Tony DeAngelo got things going here. The Blueshirts won the faceoff and DeAngelo just put it on net. This shot splits the two guys in front perfectly.

Rangers 1, Canes 1

Saku Maenalanen took advantage when Marc Staal’s pass to Brett Howden was muffed.

Rangers 2, Canes 1

This was a set play, and a bad play by Curtis McElhinney. The dump in, and Kreider beat everyone and McElhinney to the puck, and just slid it in front to Zibanejad for the empty netter.

Rangers 3, Canes 1

Zuccarello with the steal to start the play, then Zuccarello being Zuccarello with the blind behind the back pass to Zibanejad to finish the play.

Rangers 4, Canes 1

This was some pretty passing with the man advantage. Buchnevich found the seam in the slot and Zibanejad/Zuccarello combined for the pretty passing play.

Rangers 5, Canes 1

A wide open passing lane to Zibanejad starts this play, and when the initial shot doesn’t get through, Buchnevich is in front to bury the rebound.

Rangers 5, Canes 2

Maenalanen made a pretty nice deflection in front here. He was getting mauled in front, and still got a stick on it. Good play here.

Rangers 6, Canes 2

I have no idea what Carolina was doing here, the entire team had their controllers unplug. Nieves made a nice play for the turnover and to start the rush, and then DeAngelo came back after about 10 minutes to finish the play while Carolina sat there and watched.

Shot Heatmap

There’s a big shot differential here. I usually say something like this is due to scoring effects, but the Rangers have been bad with this all year. So let’s just call this par for the course.

This was a satisfying win. Seeing two important (or should be important) kids putting up multi point nights is always good. Plus seeing Zuccarello being Zuccarello is always nice. Good to see he will go out with a bang. The Blueshirts have two more games before they take nine days off.

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