Chris Kreider paved the way for a Rangers victory, but when No. 1 goalkeeper Igor Shesterkin was taken off the ice in the middle of the third period, there were no good feelings.
The Rangers, behind a hat trick from Kreider, after a first period without light, won 6-1 against the Devils on Thursday night at the Prudential Center, but lost to Shesterkin due to what appeared to be be an injury to the right leg. It was the Rangers’ first win against the Devils this season (after being treated in the last two), but it had a potentially high cost.
Shesterkin, who was on the rise as a Ranger ‘go-to netminder, lay on the ice after saving the Devil Damon Severson with 12:42 left in the game. While Shesterkin was carried off the ice and into the locker room, he could not put weight on his right leg.
While an impressive number of Rangers fans contributed to Newark’s crowd of 1,800, most of the team didn’t seem to show up. With the exception of Kreider, who scored his seventh, eighth and ninth goal (for a total of 10 points) in the last seven games to ensure victory almost alone.
Kreider put the Rangers on his back, while the center of the top line, Mika Zibanejad, probably fell to his lowest point of the season and was scored for most of the second period. Zibanejad recorded only 3:59 of the ice during the first period and then did not take a change until more than half of the average frame was finished.
With Artemi Panarin still on indefinite leave of absence and out of the group for a fifth straight game, Jacob Trouba nursing a broken thumb and Zibanejad looking like a self-shell, Kreider was the backbone of the Rangers.
There was a reason why Rangers Brass signed him on the 29-year-old wing to a seven-year contract in February last year – for games like this.
Jack Hughes had the only number of Devils of the night, the third goal (and fourth point) in three games against the Rangers this season. The goal gave the Devils 1-0 leading in the second.
Then Kreider started to work to keep his hot line, scoring goals back-to-back about 5 ½ minutes away in the second. After Devils striker Kyle Palmieri entered the box for slashing, Kreider dropped the net and buried a slick feed from Ryan Strome for the sixth and fourth power goal of the season in the last six games.
His second issue of the night came after, at 13:57, he deflected a shot by Ryan Lindgren in front of Mackenzie Blackwood. Looks like Kreider started sitting in his house again in front of the box.
Kreider completed the hat trick 23 seconds into the third. Goals from Pavel Buchnevich, Brendan Smith and Alexis Lafreniere completed the victory.
The Devils came out exactly as they had in the first two games against the Rangers, passing through the neutral zone and passing clearly. Hughes pulled the puck off the post to set the tone, while the Blueshirts just watched the puck and skated on top of each other.
Hughes’ goal at 7:12 of the first was a microcosm of how the Rangers competed in the first. With no one behind, Hughes cleaned up a puck that jumped off the back panels for 1-0.
In front of the confrontation at 10:04, the defenders of the devils, Dmitry Kulikov, hit the barrel with a rocket fired from the point.