Blueshirts set team record with 54th victory of season
The third time was, in fact, the charm for the Rangers, who had swung and missed on their previous two opportunities to secure their 54th win of the season and set a franchise record.
It had evaded the Blueshirts as their five-on-five offense went cold, but they finally broke through with an even-strength, game-tying goal at the end of the third period to set themselves up for a 3-2 shootout win over the Islanders on Saturday afternoon at Madison Square Garden.
“You want to make sure that you’re doing your best, make sure you’re getting the two points, getting the wins and if you do that well enough, then you get a chance to play for the Stanley Cup,” head coach Peter Laviolette said. “The regular season has to happen for everybody, 82 games. The fact that this group was able to battle hard the way they did and collect 54, I think that’s something they should be proud of from a regular-season standpoint.”
“There’s a lot of work that has to be done. You play the regular season to get to the playoffs and that’s what it’s all about.”
The Rangers were trailing by a goal in the final frame when Artemi Panarin, sitting on the bench, smashed his stick on the boards.
Well into their ninth period without a five-on-five goal, the Rangers were drawing dangerously close to dropping their third game in a row, something they haven’t done since a four-game skid in early January.
However, off a clean faceoff win from Vincent Trocheck later in the period, Panarin wristed the puck right under the crossbar to even the score at two-all with 4:17 left in regulation. He came down on one knee and slid across the ice in an emphatic celebration as the Garden erupted.
It proved to be enough to force overtime, where Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin had to make four saves while Islanders netminder Ilya Sorokin wasn’t tested once. Panarin and Trocheck scored in the shootout as Shesterkin denied Kyle Palmieri and Brock Nelson.
“I was a little pissed because we couldn’t score,” Panarin told The Post of his stick slam. “Real emotion, just can’t keep it in. And I have a bunch of sticks this year. [The goal] was unbelievable, especially when the crowd went like that, you can’t buy that for any money.”
Like any NHL team gearing up for the playoffs, the Rangers want to be at the top of all aspects of their game.
The fact that they’ve stayed atop the league for much of the season despite being one of the most inconsistent teams at five-on-five, however, is a testament to how much other parts of their identity have successfully overcompensated.
That does not make it any less concerning that the Rangers went 178:47 over four games without a five-on-five goal, even if Artemi Panarin ended the drought with a crucial game-tying score en route to a 3-2 shootout victory over the Islanders on Saturday at the Garden.
“In five-on-five work, we’re pushing, we’re looking,” head coach Peter Laviolette said. “There’s a lot of chances. Without much power-play time, there’s 93 attempts at the net tonight. We’re in the offensive zone, we’re looking for it, it’s just not dropping maybe as easily as we would like. There were some good chances, especially early on. We just couldn’t capitalize on them.
“We’re getting the looks, so that makes me feel good about that, but we also need to bury them.”
For those counting at home, the Rangers nearly went nine consecutive periods without notching a fiveon-five goal. More concerningly, over that span, they were outscored 9-0 at even strength.
The power play had kept them somewhat competitive in the previous two games, collecting three goals. The Rangers only received one manadvantage opportunity Saturday, which they failed to capitalize on, while the Islanders went 0-for-5 on the power play.
“I don’t think anybody is thinking, ‘Oh, five-on-five, we need to score,’ ” Vincent Trocheck said. “If we win 4-0 and they’re all power-play goals or two shorthanded goals, I don’t think anybody cares one way or anything. We need to score goals to win games and however they come that’s how they’re going to come. I feel like a lot of times the flow of the game is different. We had a lot of penalty kills.
“Some games you go up with three power-play goals and you’re more shut down the rest of the game and you don’t score five-on-five. It’s just the flow of the game. We’re all just trying to win games however we can.”
➤ Coming back from a 2-1 deficit, the Rangers completed their 28th comeback of the season to set a franchise record. Their 112 points are tied with the 1993-94 team for the secondmost in team history.