Rangers rally late against Columbus for overtime win
NEW YORK — Derek Stepan came through late, not once but twice, in the New York Rangers’ rally against Columbus.
Stepan scored with 28 seconds left in regulation to force overtime, then got the winner late in the extra period in the Rangers’ 4-3 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday night.
With their fourth straight win, the Rangers improved to 51-21-7 for a league best 109 points. With three games remaining, the Rangers are two points ahead of Anaheim for the Presidents’ Trophy. New York has four more (46-42) regulation and overtime wins, a tiebreaker.
The Rangers have won the Presidents’ Trophy once in their 88-year history, in the 1993-94 season — the last time the franchise won the Stanley Cup.
Columbus, the NHL’s hottest team, had won nine in a row, but won’t make the playoffs. Henrik Lundqvist made 29 saves and has won all four of those games in the streak. Martin St. Louis and Dan Girardi also scored for New York.
Matt Calvert, Marko Dano and Brandon Dubinsky scored for Columbus, which outplayed New York for much of the second half of the game. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 38 shots.
With Lundqvist pulled for an extra skater, Stepan whipped Chris Kreider’s feed past Bobrovsky as the Madison Square Garden crowd erupted. Stepan ended a wild overtime with a forehand shot with 49.6 seconds to go as the fans again celebrated.