Suppressing a third-period comeback is a matter of luck, but the Rangers can’t expect to have the same luck twice.
However, this is exactly what the Blueshirts got, when the Devils gave them a late power play, which Mika Zibanejad capitalized on to break the tie and get a 5-3 victory on Sunday afternoon at Prudential Center. Victoria completed the Devils’ four-game move, which the Rangers desperately needed to hang in the playoffs.
The Rangers had a 3-1 advantage in the third period, but for the second day in a row, the Devils buried two quick goals, with much game left. On Saturday, the Devils entered only one and never managed to tie him up. This time, two were all they needed to balance the score.
But Devils defender Ryan Murray was caught on Kaapo Kakko, giving the Rangers a timely advantage. Zibanejad took over the magic of Pavel Buchnevich’s birthday on Saturday and hit the winner of the game with three minutes left in the rules.
Ryan Strome was then hung on the road to a goal with an empty net and received the credit with 5-3.
“Playing a team four times in a row, when you have four wins, I don’t care what it looks like,” said head coach David Quinn about the win, which kept the Rangers four points from fourth in the playoffs and the Bruins, who two games in hand. “I don’t care how many directions you blew. I do not care. It doesn’t matter, even if you can’t find ways to win, and that’s what I did.
“Now, having said that, we certainly understand that if we are to succeed, we have to play better. We know this, this is not lost in our country, it is not lost in the coaches and I don’t think it was lost in any of the players. ”
The Rangers had a scare at the end of the first period, when goalkeeper Alexandar Georgiev had to be helped off the ice and went down the tunnel favoring his left foot. Igor Shesterkin had to make two saves in 2:19 of ice time to end the period before Georgiev returned to start the second.
Georgiev, who said after the match that his knee was blocked, managed to finish the game and arrived with 25 saves.
The Rangers spent most of the opening 20 minutes in the defensive zone, as the Devils permanently maintained possession. But whenever the Devils were wrong, the Rangers rushed in, as did the entire series.
With the Devils captain Nico Hischier in the box for defeating Jacob Trouba, who hit early and drew the anger of his opponents for it, Zibanejad hit Chris Kreider in the doorway for a light touch. Kreider’s 6:31 number has given him 10 career goals this season
The Rookies were the ones who then propelled the Rangers with a 3-0 lead. Vitali Kravtsov threw only once for his first NHL goal at the end of the first, before Alexis Lafreniere’s backis, at the start of the second, built a comfortable margin.
After acknowledging that giving up the third advantage is something the team will have to talk about, Zibanejad made it clear that the Rangers’ goals are in the playoffs.
“We put ourselves in a good place,” he said. “So we try to take a game at a time and it sounds very cliché, but that’s all we can do. Worry about the next game and try to get the two points and move on. ”