HANK TO RESCUE
Holds off Leafs as Rangers win in shootout
TORONTO — To get to a shootout for the second straight game, Henrik Lundqvist had to come up with huge saves on two breakaways — the last against wunderkind Auston Matthews — in the final 53 seconds of the frenetic 3-on-3 overtime in which his counterpart Frederik Andersen made four big stops within the first two minutes.
Then the skills competition arrived again, two nights after Lundqvist was disappointed when losing to Montreal at home. On Thursday at Air Canada Centre he stopped two of Toronto’s three shooters, making the final save on Nazem Kadri to seal a 2-1 win for the Rangers right after Mika Zibanejad’s shootout tally.
“I do have short memory, but I definitely remember losing in the shootout the other night,” said Lundqvist, who made 32 saves. “Didn’t want to come up short twice here, so it felt really important to come up with the win, and we did some really important things tonight.”
The Rangers (3919-2) did indeed play a strong game throughout, outplaying the Maple Leafs (28-20-12) and opening up a wide shot attempts margin which finished 86-56 in their favor. Yet they trailed 1-0 through two periods as Andersen (37 saves) answered the bell across from Lundqvist.
Their top two lines generated a ton of opportunities. Rick Nash had six shots and 11 attempts, and the Zibanejad-Mats Zuccarello-Chris Kreider line was highly effective. They could’ve easily gotten frustrated, and at one point Zibanejad, who won 13 of 16 faceoffs, said “we talked on the bench how we couldn’t believe we hadn’t scored yet.”
Finally at 10:50 of the third they struck, creating some havoc on what had been a struggling power play over the last month. Brandon Pirri, inserted into the lineup in place of Pavel Buchnevich to help get that power play going, ripped a shot wide and off the end boards. Kevin Hayes then shot it off Andersen and J.T. Miller cleaned up in the crease to tie the game 1-1. The Rangers are 30-5-0 when Miller registers a point.
Of course it took a greasy goal to level it after all the quality scoring chances they put together. “That’s normally how it works,” said Miller, who has a team-high 47 points. “When the goalies are standing on their heads you don’t get the tic-tactoes to go in.”
Lundqvist is now 10-2-1 over his last 14 games with a 1.91 goals against average and .939 save percentage. He remained calm when the game was in its most intense moments.
“You try not to be emotional throughout the game, the highs and the lows,” he said. “You try just to stay in the middle and be very focused on what you have to do. In the shootout, as a goalie you take a lot of responsibility in the outcome.”
BACK KO’S KLEIN: Alain Vigneault said Kevin Klein tweaked his back toward the end of Thursday’s morning skate, which led to him being scratched for the game. Adam Clendening entered the lineup and played well in 15:09 on a pair with Brady Skjei.