Sports

SURPRISE GOING-AWAY PARTY ; BLUESHIRTS LEAVE ON RARE HIGH NOTE

Went to a Garden party, and much to our surprise, the Rangers got the first goal, and then they scored five more times.

For playing against the Penguins, they were all right, yeah, they learned their lessons well; pleased the 18,200 fans, and the Rangers pleased themselves.

“We haven’t played this well in a long time, here or on the road,” Kevin Stevens said after Friday night’s decisive 6-1 victory that sent the Rangers on their way to Alberta for games tonight and Monday in Edmonton and Calgary, respectively, feeling very good about themselves. “It was very nice to establish ourselves.”

Dan Cloutier made the very most of just his 10th start of the season, and only his third at home. He was sharp right from the outset, holding his team even while the Penguins were taking seven of the first eight shots of the game. Quick, agile and in command throughout, the 22-year-old came within 5:34 of his first NHL shutout before he was finally beaten by Kevin Hatcher.

“It’s the same for any team; if you get good goalkeeping early in a game, it gives your team a chance to get into the flow,” said John Muckler. “You have to have that. It’s critical.”

It may be the same for any team, but moreso for the Rangers, who had lost seven of their last eight at the Garden.

“Danny was great. He was super. I’m sorry he didn’t get the shutout; he deserved it,” Muckler said.

“That would have been a thrill, obviously, but for me it’s just a thrill to get the chance to play,” said Cloutier, who has now played in four straight games, with his start in Nashville on Monday and relief appearances in each of the two previous matches at the Garden. “The more I play, the better I feel, which is only natural.”

Cloutier was very, very good, but so were the Rangers in front of him. They were attentive defensively, outstanding in checking Jaromir Jagr, sharp on their version of the trap. But they were also aggressive in the offensive zone, taking the body, jumping into the play both on the rush and the down-low game.

Petr Nedved, struggling badly over the last month, had a terrific two-way game between Brent Fedyk and Mike Knuble against Jagr’s unit. Niklas Sundstrom, who moved to right side with Wayne Gretzky and Adam Graves, was marvelous. The Stevens-Marc Savard-John MacLean line was jumping all night.

The realigned defense was excellent. Brian Leetch and Ulf Samuelsson combined with Nedved’s unit to shut down Jagr, Jan Hrdina and Kip Miller. The Chris Tamer-Mathieu Schneider and Stan Neckar-Rich Brennan pairs were crisp in all three zones.

It was, in fact, as complete a game as the Rangers have played all season, and it came against a quality opponent. It reversed the negative energy that had threatened to envelop the team after it had lost 10 of its last 14 overall to slide six games under .500.

“We talked a lot about how important it was for us to have a strong start,” said Stevens, who scored twice against Tom Barrasso. “And we talked a lot about building on a lead if we got one.”

The lead came at 11:27 when Brennan, playing his second game as a Ranger and 15th in the NHL following his promotion from Hartford, wristed a 50-footer throgh traffic from above the right circle. It finished a play that began when Savard, who would register three assists, beat Darius Kasparaitis to the puck behind the Pittsburgh net.

It was 1-0 after the first, though the Rangers had been outshot 12-5. By the 14:04 mark of the second, it became 4-0 with the Rangers beating Barrasso on their seventh, eighth and 10th shots of the match.

Stevens made it 2-0 on a power-play tip at 5:50. Killing a penalty at 8:35, Nedved took a headman feed from MacLean, scooted in at top speed while managing to control a rolling puck, then feinted and went up top on the backhand. It became 4-0 when Stevens converted another feed from MacLean. “We approached this as a real challenge; Pittsburgh was a challenge, Jagr was a challenge,” said Muckler. “I thought we got a super effort.”

And threw a Garden party for themselves.