The Rangers salted away Sunday’s 4-3 Garden victory over the Panthers on Mats Zuccarello’s five-on-three power play goal that gave the club a 4-2 lead at 6:16 of the third period.
The goal from the right circle improved the club’s record with a two-man advantage to 3-for-6 on the season. Overall, their power play is 11-for-56 for 19.6 percent, tied for 12th in the NHL. A year ago, the Rangers were 23rd in the league at 15.7 percent.
“It feels like a power play,” Brad Richards said when asked for his analysis of the man-advantage unit. “It didn’t feel like much of a power play last year.
“We practice it every day,” said the alternate captain, who laid out the feed Zuccarello converted. “Everybody communicates at practice. Everybody on the unit has a voice in it.
“It’s fun to be on a cohesive unit.”
Zuccarello has been skating on the first five-on-four power play unit with Derek Stepan and Ryan Callahan up front and Richards and Ryan McDonagh on the points. That was the unit coach Alain Vigneault chose to employ on the five-on-three, even taking a timeout to give the quintet recovery time after having been on for 52 seconds on the original five-on-four.
“It’s an honor to be out there in those situations,” Zuccarello said after getting his second of the year and first on the power play. “You want to do well in that part of the game, and there’s obviously a little bit of pressure to score, so it’s nice to see it go in.”
The Blueshirts went primarily with their three customary defensive pairs — McDonagh with Dan Girardi; Marc Staal with Anton Stralman and Michael Del Zotto with John Moore — but the club juggled the tandems for portions of the second and late in the third as well.
McDonagh led the club with 24:04 while Zuccarello led forwards in ice time with 21:19. … The Rangers’ streak of holding opponents to two goals or fewer ended at nine straight. … The Devils are at the Garden Tuesday night.