AV’ TO HAND IT TO ’EM Rangers sweep Avalanche with SO win in Denver
DENVER — This was just another feather in the Rangers’ cap, in a season that has collected a plume.
The Rangers’ 3-2 shootout win over a heavy Avalanche team at Ball Arena on Thursday night put an exclamation point on a 10-day stretch that was brimming with top opponents.
It counted as the first time the Blueshirts swept Colorado in the regular season since 2016-17, a feat that only looks more impressive when you analyze the Avs’ dominance over the rest of the NHL in the last few seasons.
“We’re pretty confident with our game right now,” said Vincent Trocheck, who — along with Artemi Panarin — scored in the skills competition to extend the Rangers’ win streak to four games.
“I feel like we’re only getting better. Since the deadline, I feel like we’ve rounded out our game a lot. Hopefully, we can continue to get better before the playoffs.”
Coming into the game, the Avalanche were only one loss removed from a season-high, nine-game win streak — and they competed accordingly.
Nathan MacKinnon had registered a point in all 35 of the Avs’ previous home games coming into the contest, the second longest run in NHL history. The menacing power forward looked primed to extend it to 36.
The Rangers met each challenge, however, with the same force that Colorado plays on a game-togame basis.
“I think it’s good from a standpoint that you know you’re playing teams that are high in their divisions, high in their conferences, they’ve had great years,” head coach Peter Laviolette said. “Colorado is certainly one of those teams . ... The guys played hard. They started the game the right way. I thought they played hard. They fought in the third period to get that lead.”
This one quickly became
a goaltending showdown between two goalies who used to share the same net.
It was only the fourth time the Avs’ Alexandar Georgiev was facing his former team, who shipped his negotiating rights to Colorado on the first day of the 2022 NHL Draft. The Bulgarian-born netminder has always played with a little extra juice against the Rangers, and Thursday night was no different.
Entering the game with a 1-0-2 record with a 1.56 goals-against average and a .952 save percentage against the Rangers, Georgiev has still never finished a game in regulation against the club who gave him his first NHL opportunity.
The Rangers’ Igor Shesterkin went save-for-save with Georgiev for 39:27 of the game before Avalanche forward Casey Mittelstadt opened the scoring with just seconds left in the middle frame.
It was only a matter of time with the level Colorado played at from puck drop. The Rangers generated some isolated quality scoring chances, such as Shesterkin’s stretch pass to Artemi Panarin before the star Russian wing was denied by Georgiev, but the Avalanche consistently attacked the game as a team.
Shesterkin went on to serve as a brick wall in overtime, making five big stops en route to 38 saves on the night.
The Rangers found their pushback early in the third period, when they started generating some sustained quality offensive-zone time. Kaapo Kakko then put one in off Georgiev from behind the goal line to even the score at one-all with 17:01 left in regulation.
Chris Kreider gave the Rangers their first lead of the night with a power-play goal, but it only lasted just over three minutes.
Colorado just kept coming until Devon Toews put a long shot on net through traffic, where Ryan Lindgren — skating in his first game back from injury — tried to freeze the puck under Shesterkin and pushed it in instead to even the score once again at the 12:47 mark of the final frame.
“We can look at each other and see what we can [take] in the playoffs,” Shesterkin said. “It’s really good when you play against great teams, especially before the playoffs.”