ST. PAUL, Minn. — If this was a bounce-back night for the Rangers in trouncing the Wild 5-2 some 23 hours after they had been routed 5-1 in Denver, so too did it represent an individual turnaround for Michael Del Zotto who suffered through an odious minus-four game against the Avalanche.
It might not be so obvious from the stat sheet that shows him as a minus-two, on both Minnesota goals in the final 7:12 of the match, one a short-handed score. But the sophomore defenseman was not only far more decisive in his decision-making, he scored a power play goal going up top from just below the left circle at 14:24 of the second to give his team a 2-0 cushion.
“It couldn’t have been a better situation for me having another game the next night,” Del Zotto said after getting his second goal and second power play goal of the year from the territory he claimed as his own through much of last year’s rookie season. “It was a perfect situation for me to respond.”
Before the match, coach John Tortorella said he was, “anxious to see how [Del Zotto] would handle himself.”
“I’m not concerned,” Tortorella said. “It’s a process, but I think he needs to learn patience instead of force-feeding it. He can simplify his game by making the 20-foot pass up the wall instead of the 60-foot pass cross-ice.
“He’s still a young man,” he said. “He gets a lot of minutes. It’s a tremendous learning experience for him.”
After the game, Tortorella praised Del Zotto.
“It was a good step for him,” he said. “He’s going to go through these situations. I thought he did a really good job.”
Del Zotto scored the goal off a nifty feed from freshman Derek Stepan. The power play goal came after the Blueshirts had failed twice on the man-advantage, stretching their string of futility to 1-for-19.
“Getting that goal is huge for our confidence on the PP,” Del Zotto said. “So often when you get one, the floodgates open.”
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Brandon Prust, who suffered a painful charley horse late in Friday’s game, played and played effectively in 16:03 (did he really need to be out there that much?) despite the pain. This was exactly to no one’s surprise.
“I don’t think I know many players tougher than him,” Stepan said. “That’s the way the team wants to be, too.”
Said Tortorella: “That’s our foundation. That’s what we’re trying to be as a Rangers team.”
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The Wild came into the match ranked first in the NHL in power play efficiency at 27.8 percent, but Blueshirts killed all four Minnesota advantages, extending their streak to 22 straight and 28 of 29 over the last nine games.
The Rangers are 5-0 on the second night of back-to-backs, with three of the victories following defeats.
“The first thing I look at is conditioning,” Tortorella said. “Our guys did their work, not so much in training camp but over the summer and came into camp in shape ready to go.”
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Brandon Dubinsky in the postgame room took a look at the final sheet, announced that he had done well in faceoffs, then ripped the paper in half that showed him to be 0-5 for a team that went 19-38 at the dots, including Brian Boyle‘s 4-12 and Erik Christensen‘s lone above .500, 6-5.
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The Flames are at the Garden tomorrow night before the Rangers head to Florida for their annual Thanksgiving trip that will include matches in Tampa on Wednesday and in Sunrise on Friday before going to Nashville on Saturday.