IM-PREZ-IVE
Rangers make their case for Presidents’ Trophy in Boston
BOSTON — This represented a tour de force for the Rangers, who not only refuse to go away but reinserted themselves smack dab in the middle of the multiple-team donnybrook for the Presidents’ Trophy with Thursday’s 5-2 dominating and stifling victory here over the first-overall Bruins.
The margin between the Blueshirts and the B’s has been narrowed again to one point in the wake of this one in which the visitors claimed an astonishing 27-7 edge in scoring chances over the final two periods in which Artemi Panarin elevated his goal total to 41 off a hat trick including the second of two New York empty-netters.
The Rangers, soldiering on without Jacob Trouba and Ryan Lindgren, gave essentially nothing away. The few times they did, Jonathan Quick barred the door in a 24-save performance for the 391st victory of his career that tied Ryan Miller as the winningest U.S.-born goaltender in NHL history.
“We talked about the magnitude of this game and I thought we played well,” said Mika Zibanejad, whose club maintained a two-point division lead over Carolina. “I liked our decision-making, how structured we were and the way we battled.”
This was a primer for the playoffs. The Rangers avoided oddman rushes because they were disciplined through the neutral zone and at both lines. They got the puck in deep and went to work below the hashmarks, gaining a territorial edge for shifts at a time.
For chunks of the game — nearly the entire second and third after a somewhat dicey first period—the Rangers and not the Bruins seemed like the heavier team.
“It was good. It was real good,” said head coach Peter Laviolette, behind the bench for his 1,500th NHL game. “The first, they had a couple of opportunities off the power play and a couple off five-on-five but in the second and third I thought we really locked it down with a smart game while in the offensive game continuing to hunt pucks.”
Laviolette mixed his lines throughout the second, sitting Chris Kreider for a large portion of the second while using Panarin on three different units. Down 1-0, Panarin snaked one through Jeremy Swayman’s fivehole to tie the match at 7:58 of the second before getting the 2-1 goal at 19:25 when his pass meant for Alex Wennberg banked in off a diving Jake DeBrusk.
“I don’t want to say much about the playoffs but for sure, this is the way to play,” Panarin, who logged 21:25. “You focus every shift on not cheating and playing an honest game.
“That’s the way to play. I think we started the year playing this way and then went down for a little while, I don’t know why, but now we are back to where we need to be.”
The K’Andre Miller-Braden Schneider pair was outstanding yet again. Indeed, the tandem has been so dynamic and responsible that Laviolette might face the decision whether to automatically replace Schneider with Trouba on that pairing when the captain is able to return from the lower-body injury that has sidelined him for the last seven games.
Adam Fox, who scored the 3-2 winner by picking the top corner from the right circle at 3:57 of the third, 40 seconds after the B’s had tied it on a rebound jam, played with a particular edge in his 21:59 of ice. Zac Jones was singularly impressive on a defense that received consistent support from the forwards.
The Rangers are 11-8-1 against the rest of the NHL’s top 10. They have the third-overall Panthers, two points in arrears with two games in hand, at the Garden on Saturday. They go west to play Colorado at the end of the week after the Flyers come to town. The schedule has been a gauntlet.
Laviolette is embracing the challenge.
“[The Bruins] are a good hockey team. They’re sitting first in the league for a reason,” said the coach. “Our guys were ready to play tonight.
“I think it’s a good thing to be playing these games down the stretch. Playing Winnipeg [Tuesday], I hated the result but I was happy with the way we played, our guys played pretty hard.
“Then you see what’s coming and this is perfect for us. These are games that can help us.”
In the playoffs, was the rest of the sentence Laviolette did not complete. In the playoffs, where if the Rangers can duplicate this one 16 times, they just might have something.