Bantering Points: 2/3/17

The Rangers successfully avoided a season sweep at the hands of the Buffalo Sabres last night, pulling out a 2-1 overtime victory in upstate New York. With another two points in the books, the Rangers will stay off the ice again until Super Bowl Sunday, when they'll be hosting the Calgary Flames. Here are today's news and links:

Rangers News:

• Highlights: NYR 2, BUF 1 (4:09 Video via NHL.com)
• Game Recap: Chris Kreider's 20th goal of the season notched New York an extra point last night at the KeyBank Center (CBS)
• Larry Brooks identifies the Rangers' struggling power play as a major issue for Brandon Pirri (NY Post)
• Steve Zipay hears that Antti Raanta missed last night's game due to the birth of his daughter, Evelyn (Newsday)
• Tom Urtz Jr. dives into how the team's individual players performed during the month of January (Blueshirt Bulletin)
• Scott Charles offers on last night's overtime victory (Blueshirt Bulletin)
• Brandon Cohen toys with the idea of re-acquiring former fan favorite Brian Boyle from the Tampa Bay Lightning (Blue Line Station)
• Alexandra Russo believes that Mika Zibanejad is slowly developing into playing a role currently held by Derek Stepan (Blue Line Station)
• Derek Radich ponders if New York's loyalty to Alain Vigneault will cost them a chance at winning the Stanley Cup (Elite Sports NY)
• Postgame Notes: Mats Zuccarello continues his hot play, notching a power play goal to make it twenty points in his last twenty games (Official Team Site)
• Postgame Interviews: Alain Vigneault,(1:57) J.T. Miller,(1:00) Henrik Lundqvist,(3:05) and Chris Kreider (1:18) /

Around the NHL:

• Greg Wyshynski relays the list of the NHL's You Can Play ambassadors, with Andrew Shaw, (Montreal Canadiens) Brad Marchand, (Boston Bruins) and Ryan Kesler (Anaheim Ducks) headlining the list (Puck Daddy)
• Jason Brough reports that a "big meeting" about the NHL's participation in the 2018 Winter Olympics is set to take place today (NBC Sports)
• Dimitri Filipovich examines the value of having a depandable backup goaltender (Sportsnet)
• hockeypassingstats suggests a new method of defining defenseman based on their transitional play. This is a long one, but well worth the read (Hockey Graphs)
• Matt Larkin lists ten under-the-radar trade candidates for this year's trade deadline (The Hockey News)/

Do you know who the Ranger in the picture is?