Recap: Rangers Offense Surge Over Seattle

The Rangers wrap up their two game home stand with another big win as the team finds an offensive spark to come up with a 5-2 win over the Seattle Kraken. As the team continues to battle out of their recent slump, the Rangers not only got goals from different players across the lineup, but Igor Shesterkin again had a great showing which is what you love to see after his recent struggles.

1st Period:

Right off the bat the Rangers were off to one of their better starts as they immediately gained puck possession and set up shop in Seattle’s zone to establish a strong pace to the game. Just four minutes in, the Rangers would get the advantage as Jaden Schwartz was called for hooking Artemiy Panarin. The top power play unit would take the ice but would continue to struggle as they would advance to 0-for-9 throughout this recent cold streak. Thankfully, they would finally snap it.

Not long after the penalty to Schwartz ended, Justin Schultz sent the puck over the glass to send the Rangers power play crew right back out there. This time around, they were finally able to convert as Panarin entered the zone with great poise and fed a laser of a no-look pass across the zone to Vincent Trocheck who was right there at the doorstep to one-touch the puck into the wide open net, giving the Rangers a 1-0 lead.

Approaching the midway mark of the first period, Barclay Goodrow was sent off for roughing Tomas Tatar following a frozen puck in the Rangers zone. This gave Seattle their first power play of the night and just over a minute into it, found the back of the net. A neutral zone turnover from Trocheck resulted in an odd-man rush for Seattle. After a beautiful passing play from their power play unit, Jordan Eberle let a shot go from the slot that beat Igor Shesterkin point blank to tie the game up at one.

Just about thirty seconds later, Mika Zibanejad snuck a neat little pass over to Chris Kreider who fed Erik Gustafsson at the point. Right after making the pass, Kreider went straight to the net and Gustafsson let the shot go through a partial screen that ended up in the back of the net to regain the Rangers lead, 2-1.

The Rangers held on and would take the lead into the first intermission of the night. After the first twenty, Seattle had the slight advantage in shots 8-7 but the Rangers were again dominating in face-off’s, going 12-for-16.

2nd Period:

Shesterkin would be tested early in the second as a shot from Will Borgen at the point left a juicy rebound at the top of the crease that he was able to come up with the second save on. Through the first four minutes of the period, Shesterkin came up with seven saves including another big one off a hard shot from Kailer Yamamoto on a 2-on-1 opportunity for Seattle. It would continue to be Seattle applying the bulk of the pressure through the second as the Rangers were initially sitting back, unable to really break through the neutral zone.

The Rangers first real quality chance of the period came around the midway mark of the night as Panarin fed another strong pass to Jonny Brodzinski who was cutting hard to the net. Things were slowly turning in the Rangers direction from there and with close to seven minutes to go in the period, Brodzinski let a shot go from up higher towards the blue line. The shot from Brodzinski took a redirect off of Blake Wheeler’s stick in front of the net to deflect past Chris Dreidger and in to make it a 3-1 game in favor of New York.

With three minutes to go, Zibanejad started the breakout in the Rangers own zone and ended up back with it at the other end of the ice after Kreider gave him the pass back in the neutral zone. Zibanejad then moved the puck over to Kaapo Kakko on the right wing side who let a quick shot go to beat Dreidger and extend the Rangers lead even more, now 4-1.

A massive goal for Kaapo Kakko who has missed half the season up to this point. He was sorely missed during that time and it’s great to see him find a way to get going again after injury.

A bit of an interesting period as the Kraken made a significant push, registering 16 shots on goal throughout the second but it was the Rangers finding the back of the net twice to extend their lead 4-1. While Seattle out-shot the Rangers 24-17, the Blueshirts had a nice lead established for themselves which set them up to close things out here in the final period.

3rd Period:

The Rangers didn’t do much sitting back as they continued to apply pressure in the offensive zone and were really flying on the rush early on in the period. Things progressively slowed down the more time continued to dwindle down. There was a brief spark to the intensity of the game as Erik Gustafsson got tangled up with Tye Kartye following a frozen puck by Shesterkin. Nevertheless, nothing came of it aside from a TV timeout.

On one of the shifts that followed, Mika Zibanejad poked the puck free at the Rangers blue line and found himself on a breakaway. After cutting to the backhand, Chris Dreidger was able to come up with the save to keep the Rangers from extending on their already significant lead.

After a period and a half of no penalties, K’Andre Miller was called for tripping with about six and a half minutes to go in the game. This gave Seattle their second power play of the night and that would be enough to get them involved once again. The Rangers penalty killers again got caught watching and Jordan Eberle was able to slide the puck over to Jared McCann. McCann then took the puck to the net and tucked a back hander upstairs to make it a 4-2 game. The Rangers 0-2 on the penalty kill tonight.

With three and a half to go, Seattle had another big chance as Jamie Oleksiak found a loose puck that was blocked in front of the net but Shesterkin flashed the glove and came up with a big save to hold onto the Rangers two goal lead.

Following the big save, the Kraken pulled Dreidger for the extra attacker but Blake Wheeler quickly put the final dagger in to pick up his second of the night on the empty net. Kudos to Mika Zibanejad who did most of the work on the play to drop the pass back to Wheeler to put the puck on net. A rather in control period for the Rangers to wrap up a solid night and pick up their second win in a row, 5-2 over Seattle.

Despite it being a pretty low penalized outing, the Rangers did struggle on the penalty kill, allowing two shorthanded goals but did get their power play going again which was arguably more important. Final tally on shots for the night would be 30-23 in favor of Seattle but the Rangers offense helped them come out on top. The Blueshirt’s will head out on another West Coast road trip that kicks off Thursday Night in Vegas to take on the Golden Knights as they’ll look to build off these two recent wins.