Let’s stipulate Sunday’s 4-3 victory over the Panthers at the Garden will never see the light of day in a Rangers Classic Marathon on MSG Network, but at the same time, let’s recognize there is no such thing as a bad two points in the NHL.
“We’ll take every win we can get,” Dan Girardi said after the Blueshirts bounded over .500 at 9-8 with their sixth victory in their last seven games. “We know we struggled through this a little bit and weren’t at our best, and things we have to fix, but we’ll take it.”
It might have come with a price, however. Chris Kreider, who has been a punishing physical force on the ice, may well be suspended by the Department of Player Safety for his vicious hit that sent a defenseless Scottie Upshall flying into the boards with 1:15 to go in the third.
Upshall had been sparring with Derek Stepan as they skated to their benches for respective changes when Kreider came full force and drilled the Panthers’ winger, who tumbled backward into the boards. The Rangers survived the indiscretion by killing the power play — the call was cross-checking — that became a six-on-four when Florida pulled Tim Thomas.
“He apologized to us afterward for putting us in that position,” coach Alain Vigneault said of Kreider, for whom an apology might not be enough for the league’s disciplinary division.
The Panthers came in having lost eight straight (0-4-4) in a dive to the bottom that cost Kevin Dineen his job behind the bench. Sunday’s match was the second under coach Peter Horachek, and their second consecutive one-goal defeat, but the 3-11-4 Puddy Tats sure don’t have to apologize to anyone for their effort.
Indeed, the Rangers were outworked for significant portions of the match, most notably so in their own end, and were way too careless with the puck in the defensive zone. But the Blueshirts were able to win it by capitalizing during the flurries in which they had control and because Henrik Lundqvist was able to outdo Thomas.
The game tilted the Blueshirts’ way late in the second when Derek Dorsett’s hard-work goal from the crease at 13:58 erased a Florida 2-1 edge. Brad Richards then beat Thomas with a rising left circle wrist shot 46 seconds into the third period before Mats Zuccarello scored on a five-on-three power play for a 4-2 lead at 6:16.
“When we tied it [2-2], you could feel the momentum change,” said Lundqvist, who might have been at his best early in the second when the Panthers generated three splendid chances around the net with the score 1-1. “You could see that we came out in the third with more confidence.”
Richards had previously failed on a glorious opportunity to break the 2-2 deadlock with four minutes remaining in the second when he all but fanned on an open-net chippie off Carl Hagelin’s cross-ice feed. He didn’t make the same mistake when Hagelin set him up again on the first shift of the third period.
“When you don’t score on a chance like that, sometimes it can come back to bite you,” said Richards, who broke his stick by slamming it against the right post when play stopped soon after his second-period flub. “I took a deep breath after the second and then Hags made another nice play.
“I was surprised he kept giving it to me.”
J.T. Miller had scored his first of the year to break a 35-game drought stretching back to last Feb. 7, when he got two goals in his second NHL game. But Miller got only 2:06 in the third period. Vigneault also effectively benched Benoit Pouliot for much of the second and third, the winger playing just five shifts for 3:18 after the opening period.
This marked the third time in the last four games Pouliot was dropped out of the rotation. The Rangers are still wounded, absent forwards Rick Nash (post-concussion), Dominic Moore (oblique) and Taylor Pyatt (concussion), so Pouliot’s spot in the lineup might not in immediate jeopardy. But Vigneault clearly is losing his patience with No. 67.
Of course, Tuesday when the Devils come to the Garden, the Rangers might be absent Kreider, as well.