Rangers jump back into playoff series with convincing win
Reports of the New York Rangers’ demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Two nights after losing a triple overtime thriller, the Blueshirts came back with an at-times-dominant performance in a 5-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference First Round series at Madison Square Garden on Thursday.
With teams now all square at one game each, the series is set to shift to Pittsburgh for two games starting with Game 3, set for Saturday night at 7 PM.
If Igor Shesterkin can keep this up, however, the Rangers might have a chance to advance when it comes back to Manhattan on Wednesday night. The likely Vezina Trophy winner was once again excellent in evening the series against the Penguins, stopping 39 of 41 shots, including a deluge in the third period when New York was clinging to a one-goal lead at the time.
“He made three or four real good saves in the third for sure, early on when it was (3-2), so that was huge for us,” Rangers head coach Gerard Gallant said. “We came out, and that was probably the worst four or five minutes we had in the whole game, so that was big.”
Just as was the case in Game 1, however, Thursday night didn’t pass without at least some controversy. Penguins forward Jeff Carter collided with Shesterkin late in the third period — a move that perhaps appeared to be intentional as the goalie was out of his net to play the puck, with Carter making little or no effort to alter his path — and the Rangers had a big scare as Shesterkin was down on the ice and in some pain, sparking a relatively brief melee between the two teams before the last 2:06 of the game ultimately ended peacefully.
“I wasn’t too happy, obviously, in a game like that,” Gallant said. “There was no reason for it. I was disappointed, them going after him a little bit like that. Carter is a good, honest player, but it just didn’t look good to me.”
Shesterkin, who made a franchise-record 79 saves in Game 1, was flexing his legs quite often before play resumed, but insisted he avoided any injury on the sequence.
“I feel great, I just landed poorly,” he said through a translator.
As for the Penguins, the glass slipper had seemed to have finally cracked with goaltender Louis Domingue, who stole show in Game 1 by entering the game in double overtime and ultimately earning the win. He made 35 saves on Thursday night, including a highlight-reel stop on Mika Zibanejad to keep it a 1-0 game at the time, but will likely lose the net if either Casey DeSmith, who left Game 1 with
a lower-body injury, or Tristan Jarry, who the team announced would miss the first two games of the playoffs at minimum, are able to return.
“He made some big saves, especially when it was a one, two-goal difference. That kept us in it,” Penguins center Sidney Crosby, who scored one of Pittsburgh’s two goals on the night, said of Domingue’s effort.
“He’s competing and giving us a chance. It would’ve been nice to give him some help and tie it up and see what happened.”