ANAHEIM, Calif. — Tom Renney laid out the challenge.
“This is a pretty crucial part of the season,” the Rangers’ head coach said prior to last night’s match, which opened a California tour that continues tonight in L.A. before concluding Saturday night in San Jose. “We have to play well against these teams if we’re going to compete with them.
“We’re not going to be able to win if we don’t play well.”
Well, the Rangers played well. They competed – boy did they compete. And they defeated the Ducks 3-1 when Nigel Dawes went around Chris Pronger to beat Jonas Hiller for the winner with 3:16 to play in the third after Ryan Callahan’s hard forecheck created a right wing turnover. A Nikolai Zherdev empty-netter completed the scoring.
And so, despite an overall minus-five goal differential (excluding shootouts), the Rangers are 21-11-2. They remain on top of the Atlantic largely due to their ability to win third periods. The Blueshirts are 6-2 in games in which they’ve been tied after two.
Things seem to have stabilized for the Rangers, who have allowed a total of three goals in winning two straight after dropping three of four while allowing 19 goals and four of six while allowing 25 goals.
Henrik Lundqvist was outstanding, beaten only on a scramble play around the crease late in the second. The Blueshirts won way more than their share of puck battles against the bigger, more physical Ducks. They kept their shifts short. They drove to the net. They created flow.
And at the other end, the defense – notably the emerging Marc Staal, plus Wade Redden – held its own with the big Anaheim forwards.
Lundqvist made a half-dozen outstanding saves in the first. His most notable came with 3:05 to play when he denied Corey Perry on a wrist shot from the slot after the winger used his speed to singe Dimitri Kalinin.
The Blueshirts then took over the match in the second, gaining a 1-0 lead at 2:25 when a hard Lauri Korpikoski forecheck hurried Scott Niedermayer into a dreadful diagonal hope breakout feed from the attacking left corner that Chris Drury converted for his first goal in 12 games. Even when Chris Kunitz tied it late in the second with Lundqvist sprawled across the crease, the Rangers maintained their poise.
Perhaps a contributing factor was Renney’s decision to stick with the same four line combinations and same three defense pairs for the fourth straight game. It marked only the second time this season that the head coach had refrained from realigning at least some of the lineup for that long.
“I’ve got to settle in here. We have to see what works and what doesn’t,” said Renney, who previously went with the same units for the five games from Nov. 12-22.
The Rangers have stabilized the last two games. They played with vigor and with urgency here last night against an upper-echelon team. The penalty killing was outstanding yet again. And one more time, the Blueshirts were more than the sum of their parts.
Rangers 3 Ducks 1