OTTAWA — The heart is no surprise, but the head of this Rangers team last night was surely the 21-year-old kid from Hastings, Minn., with no shoulders but enough hockey sense to make up for handful of forwards skating in mud.
The 3-2 win over the Senators came by way of a standard effort from Henrik Lundqvist — which is to say he was terrific in making 29 saves — and a superlative performance from Derek Stepan, playing the role of Brad Richards better than Richards himself.
“Scratching and trying to find a way to get it done,” coach John Tortorella said after his team notched its fifth win a row. “Step’s line was a key offensively, and Hank made some key saves at key times. So I thought everybody chipped in.”
Stepan’s line, with Artem Anisimov and Marian Gaborik, produced all three Rangers goals and finished the night with seven combined points. Gaborik had two goals, Anisimov had two assists, and Stepan finished with a goal and two assists.
“Arty and Step are playing with a lot of confidence,” said Gaborik, who is leading the team with nine goals. “A lot of those goals were great forecheck by those guys. Hopefully we can keep it up.”
In this five-game winning streak, Stepan has three goals and five assists and has been a catalyst to get The Great Gabby moving in the right direction — which means putting the puck in the net with the same ease he showed roofing his second goal, what would turn out to be the game winner on a slow 2-on-1 with Stepan 8:30 into the third.
“I think all three of us create quite a bit of space for everyone,” Stepan said. “Obviously Gabby is a high-level player and has a lot of skill. He knows the game, he’s been in it a long time, so me and Arty are just trying to learn from him and create as much space as we can for him.”
It’s the three lines below them that Tortorella shuffled from the second period on, making it a guessing game every time there was a line change.
“I really didn’t like any of the lines except Step’s line,” the coach said. “So we tried to change things. I think it helped us checking wise. … It will come, but guys are still trying to be consistent both offensively and defensively.”
The two goals the Senators did score — one from Milan Michalek to open the scoring in the second and one from Nick Foligno to cut the lead to the 3-2 in the third — were both on wide-open wrist shots that The King had very little chance on. What did help was the 23 blocked shots the Blueshirts absorbed, along with the 21 giveaways they forced on the Senators.
“Guys are paying the price, that’s why we’ve been wining lately,” Lundqvist said. “It felt great to get this win and we have to keep it going here.”
* Mike Rupp had successful surgery yesterday to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee and he’ll be out 4-6 weeks.