HANK HEAVEN
Lundqvist keeps rebuilding Rangers afloat with stellar night in third straight victory
There was no need for the Rangers to say they were tired just over two days removed from a nineday, four-game road trip. It was obvious.
Also obvious was the fact Henrik Lundqvist remains their best player, the franchise goalie being the one piece that gives this rebuilding team — ahem, just “building,” in the parlance of firstyear coach David Quinn — a chance to win every night.
With 39 saves, Lundqvist backstopped the Blueshirts to a 3-1 victory over the Sabres on Sunday night at the Garden, notching their third win in a row following
RANGERS 3
SABRES 1
two victories to finish their California swing. It also helped that they scored two goals in a matter of 19 seconds to open the second period, which was the totality of their offense (eventually supplemented by an empty-net goal).
“Sometimes the game is not very logical,” said Lundqvist, whose team was outshot 40-21 and managed just five shots in the first period and six in the third. “I feel like we didn’t play that great the first 30 minutes or so, but we were up 2-0 in the second. But I think we earned this type of game by playing a lot of good games and not getting the points. But then in the third, I thought we played our best period.”
The Rangers (6-7-1) have not dealt with those closing moments so well recently. They had given up a six-on-five goal in the closing moments during each of the final two games in California but wound up winning both in shootouts. Still, the nerves were there as they held a 2-1 lead against a Sabres (7-6-2) team that certainly has some high-end talent.
But they defended with tenacity, and with just under two minutes to play, Jimmy Vesey got his second goal on the night into the open Buffalo net.
“I was curious to see how we were going to respond,” Lundqvist said. “We’ve been talking about it, and sometimes, yeah, you’re going to have bad bounces. But you have to learn from your mistakes. And I thought we played a really strong third period. I was really happy.”
The road-trip hangover was clear from the start, and it surely didn’t help when pivotal 20-yearold center Brett Howden went face-first into the backboards with 6:34 remaining in the second period. He did not return, although Quinn said holding him out was just “precautionary.”
Howden had made a sweet feed to Vesey to set up the Rangers’ second goal, coming one minute
into the second period, when Vesey buried a wrist shot past Carter Hutton’s glove. Nineteen seconds earlier, Neal Pionk got his first of the season when he beat Hutton on a sniper shot from the top of the left circle.
“A little tired from the trip, noticed that on guys, but we didn’t want to use that excuse,” said alternate captain Mika Zibanejad, who had a second-period breakaway attempt hit the post and barely stay out and got no help from Vlad Namestnikov who celebrated instead of jamming it over the line. “That has been our problem in the past, the beginning of the season, not finding a way to win.”
Yet in terms of winning to go along with the development of the young players, Quinn had this to say about the Rangers’ stated rebuild:
“We’re building and growing, not rebuilding. We expect to win.”
While they were taking two penalties apiece in each of the first two periods, it was Lundqvist who gave them a chance to win. He made a sprawling glove save on Conor Sheary during a secondperiod power play for the Sabres, but he wasn’t able to stop Sheary when he got consecutive chances 6:07 into the third period off a ghastly Brendan Smith turnover to make it 2-1.
Yet the Blueshirts were able to shut it down from there, and now somehow they’ve won three in a row.
“I think we had a good feeling coming back from that long trip,” Zibanejad said. “It’s a lot better feeling in this locker room right now, and we just want to keep it going.”