It is among the oldest adages for NHL teams: Don’t get too high after a victory and don’t get too low after a defeat.
The challenge thus for the Rangers was to retain their equilibrium and maintain their focus for Sunday night’s match at the Garden against the Kings, just 24 hours after slaying the dragon in Montreal.
“You don’t want to make too much out of it, but let’s face it, with the kind of circus it’s been for us [in Montreal] the last seven or eight games, it is an achievement,” Dan Girardi said after the Blueshirts’ 1-0 victory that halted the club’s eight-game losing streak in la belle province. “We need to recognize what we did well and build off it. It’s good for us to have beaten a good team.”
The Rangers pressured the puck well and kept turnovers to a minimum in the neutral zone and at the lines. They were able to use their speed to attack, even while protecting their one-goal lead over the final 34:35. The Blueshirts did not go into a shell in the third period. Indeed, the Canadiens had just two shots on net through the first 14:30 of the final period.
“We had numbers above the puck,” said associate coach Scott Arniel, who substituted for head coach Alain Vigneault in the press briefing that preceded the match against the Kings. “We forced them to ice the puck maybe six or seven times in the third.
“We tried to make it a 200-foot game. Our puck management was good. We won battles.”
Arniel recognized the historical weight taken off the Rangers with the team’s first victory in Montreal since Mar. 17, 2009.
“It was a monkey off our back,” the associate coach said. “We want to leapfrog into [Sunday]. It was a hurdle we jumped.”
The Blueshirts jumped the hurdle with speed. Chris Kreider and Carl Hagelin were flying throughout the match and were primary factors in establishing an up-tempo pace the club maintained pretty much throughout.
“I think some of [our pace] is due to the continuity of our lines,” Arniel said. “That’s a big plus.
“Early in the year because of injuries and some poor play we were making changes, but now there’s been continuity and our chemistry has started to click.”
Sunday represented the seventh straight game in which the Rangers went with the same two top lines — Richards centering Hagelin and Ryan Callahan on one unit while Derek Stepan skated between Kreider and Mats Zuccarello.
Something, of course, will change when Rick Nash rejoins the lineup, perhaps as early as Tuesday for the Garden match against the Bruins.
The Rangers’ goal in Montreal was not scored technically a five-on-three, the two-man advantage having expired three seconds before Callahan deflected Richards’ left wing drive past Carey Price at 5:25 of the second.
But the Rangers, 3-for-7 on the season with a two-man advantage, created the play with both Rafael Diaz and Max Pacioretty in the box, and then finished it before Diaz could get involved on the penalty kill.
“The one thing we stress is shooting the puck,” said Arniel, who oversees the power play. “We don’t really need to tell that to Richie, he shoots every time the puck is on his stick, but as a rule you can overpass looking for a highlight goal.
“Once you do shoot, that creates second and third opportunities.”
Richards was tied for 21st in the NHL with 65 shots and seventh in the league with 131 attempts before play Sunday.
Henrik Lundqvist returned to the net against the Kings, whom he defeated 3-1 in Los Angeles on Oct. 7. That was the match in which the goaltender suffered the unidentified injury that ultimately sidelined him for a couple of matches two weeks later.
The Rangers, 10-9 overall, were 7-2 in their previous nine, during which they outscored the opposition by an aggregate 27-14, and had limited foes to two goals or fewer in 10 of their previous 12 matches. The Kings entered 4-0-1 in their previous five, and 2-0-1 with four goals against with Ben Scrivens in net following a groin injury to No. 1 and USA Olympic hopeful Jonathan Quick.