Rangers win barn burner in Vancouver

Beginning a west coast swing, the NY Rangers battled it out against the Vancouver Canucks in what turned into a barn burner. New York, riding high on a five game winning streak, entered the Rogers Arena against a Canucks team that has lost their last two contests with Igor Shesterkin in net. Rookie Arturs Silovs made his NHL debut for Vancouver.

The barn burner got started less than 5 minutes into the game, with Curtis Lazar deflecting a shot off of the Dakota Joshua shot to put Vancouver up 1-0. About a minute later, Mika Zibanejad would storm down the wing and banked one home five hole against the rookie Canucks goaltender to tie the game at one.

At 7:03 of the first, Artemi Panarin would find the scoresheet again as he nailed home a one-timer from a nifty pass from Jimmy Vesey to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead. That wouldn’t stay for long as former Ranger J.T. Miller would tie the game at two on the power play at 12:45 from a pass from the point from Elias Pettersson.

Not being able to help himself, Panarin found himself again on the scoresheet at 15:36, which came in the form of a deflection in the slot off Niko Mikkola’s shot to give New York the lead again at 3-2.

The scoring did not stop there, as Chris Kreider would net home his 22nd goal of the season 50 seconds into the second period to put New York up 4-2. That goal was Kreider’s 251 as a New York Ranger, which puts him ahead of Rangers legend Mark Messier on the all-time goal rankings for the franchise.

Conor Garland, at 9:52 of the period, banked home a rebound chance off a nice move from Andrei Kuzmenko to make it a 4-3 game. New York wouldn’t stand pat as Filip Chytil and Jacob Trouba created enough offensive pressure to allow K’Andre Miller to wrist one behind the rookie netminder at 13:28 of the second to give the Rangers a 5-3 lead.

The third period went along for a stretch of time without any goals until Andre Kuzmenko fired one past Shesterkin at 8:51 of the third period to make the game interesting. Vancouver had New York pinned down most of the third but couldn’t capitalize on their chances.

The Canucks pulled Silovs with just about 2 minutes remaining. After a failed goal attempt Shesterkin, Mika Zibanejad iced it with the empty netter at 18:26 to make it 6-4. The win extended the winning streak to six in a row, with a 7-0-1 record in their last eight contests.

Overall, the Rangers were strong offensively but the defense as a unit weren’t particularly sharp. Vancouver was able to generate many high scoring chances on Shesterkin, keeping the Canucks in the game. Special teams were a non-factor, as the Rangers missed on their only power play chance. Shots were 29-28 in favor of Vancouver, with the majority of their shots coming in the third period.

The Rangers have scored four or more goals in six-straight games for the first time since February 2nd to March 2nd, 2006, and it’s the third consecutive game the Rangers have scored 6 or more goals. Additionally, Artemi Panarin now has six goals in his last two contests played.

Another interesting note is that New York has contributed a ton off the back end with 137 points from defenseman, which second in NHL to the San Jose Sharks, who are tops with 141, which makes sense given they have Erik Karlsson.