If this is how Marc Staal plays on an hour and a half of sleep, well then fatherhood might be the best thing to happen to him.
Staal went with his pregnant wife, Lindsay, to the hospital around 6 p.m. Monday, and by 5:10 a.m. Tuesday, she had given birth to the couple’s first child, a girl they named Anna Veralyn. With mother and child happy and healthy, Staal took a 90-minute nap from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., then came to the Garden rink and was a force on the Rangers blue line en route to a 5-1 drubbing of the Avalanche.
“You’re on such a high, I didn’t feel my best, but considering the hour and a half of sleep, I felt pretty good, to be honest,” said a beaming Staal, who still had the hospital band on his wrist as he finished with a plus-3 in 21:25. “It’ll probably catch up to me tomorrow.”
Staal played alongside defensive powerhouse Ryan McDonagh for the whole 1:50 of Colorado’s 5-on-3 man-advantage late in the second period, when the Avs were pushing to cut down on the Blueshirts’ 3-1 lead.
“I was kind of surprised they stayed on the ice,” said goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who also made four huge stops on the power play to preserve the Rangers’ lead. “I looked at their faces and they didn’t really look tired, so that was kind of impressive that they stayed out their for the whole thing.”
Now Staal just needs to find a way to not be tired after many nights of little sleep.
“Already trained myself,” he said.
The Rangers have out-attempted their opponents over the past 26 games by a total of 1,630 to 1,405, an average of 62.69 to 54.04 per game. That results in a new metric known as Corsi-For Percentage of 53.71, which would place the Rangers near the very top of the league if they could keep it up.
The stat attempts to quantify puck possession, something the Rangers have focused on.
“I think it’s more us playing well,” winger Carl Hagelin said. “It’s just us having the puck more, creating more chances, that’s what it comes down to.”
There was no news on Dan Girardi and his contract status, as the pending unrestricted free agent defenseman played a season-low 16:19, which included him taking two minor penalties. The first led to a second-period Colorado goal from Gabriel Landeskog, cutting the Rangers’ lead to 2-1, and the second was the penalty that gave the Avalanche a huge 5-on-3 man-advantage late in the second.
Girardi is believed to be relatively close to a deal in principle with the Rangers, but nothing is official yet.