It’s not easy, as Mr. Richard Starkey once remarked about hockey teams experiencing goal-scoring famines, and he was certainly right about that.
But there is no column in the rankings that represents [corporate name deleted] difficulty. Every win looks just as beautiful as the next, even when it comes in a tooth extraction contest.
So, the Rangers embraced their 3-2 shootout triumph in Philadelphia on Thursday night, resulting in a losing streak that had grown to four games, albeit with one loser point in the mix.
It’s true they were pushed to their limits by a team that hadn’t played in 11 days and was on the COVID protocol list without six regular customers, but the thing is, the blues shirts persisted and came out on the other side with a points essential to the mental health of the club, even if the Flyers tied the game up with only 1:14 left in the regulations with the additional attacker. The Rangers had no intention of quarreling.
“I just don’t think we broke,” said Brendan Smith, who had scored the leading 2-1 goal from the goal mouth at 8:21 from the third. “With a lot of younger teams you will see them break after a team scores that tying goal, but it was good resilience, it was a good attempt to react and not settle on ourselves.
‘We needed that. We really needed that. We just have to keep pulling the same chain. “
Alexandar Georgiev didn’t deal with a large number of shots, in fact only 22 on the night, but was exceptionally keen in breaking his own losing streak of four games (0-2-2) while siding half a dozen golden chances put. Artemi Panarin, who had missed the previous two games with an upper body problem, put on a tour de force, launching a total of 16 tries, eight of them on the net, before becoming the decider in the shootout that saw Kaapo Kakko out of the leadoff spot.
The power play even scored a goal, the first since – I checked the notes here – Doug Harvey was on point and Camille Henry was gearing up for the tip-ins. Wait, no, it wasn’t six decades ago, just six games since February 1. Colin Blackwell’s high-slot diversion defeated Carter Hart at 3:24 of the second period to deny the Flyers’ opening score of a goal scored within 59 seconds of the game.
Take another look at the goalscorers: Smith and Blackwell. The Blueshirts have scored six goals in the past five games. Two from Blackwell, one from Smith, one from Kevin Rooney, one from Julien Gauthier (scratched on Thursday) and one from Pavel Buchnevich. That’s not a blueprint for Rangers success. Still, the need to extrapolate is diminished by the importance of this victory that has, at least temporarily, revived good feelings.
“I am very proud,” said coach David Quinn. “This has been a tough fight for us. You can bear losses. I don’t care … how beautiful it looked or what. I don’t care how it came about, but we needed two points and we got two points and that was all that mattered. “
We told you the Flyers were an exhausted club. The fact is, the Rangers had a defense with guys who were sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth on the depth chart when the season started: Smith, Jack Johnson, Anthony Bitetto and Libor Hajek. Everything was needed in the absence of K’Andre Miller (sidelined for a second game in a row with an upper body problem), Jacob Trouba (his first missed with the broken thumb he sustained blocking a shot on Tuesday) and Tony DeAngelo (no explanation necessary).
Smith took offense when it was suggested that the Rangers had put in an “impromptu defense,” and he probably had every right. But still, it was Adam Fox (a career-high 30:17 on ice) and Ryan Lindgren (23:39) on top, with Johnson-Smith and Bitetto-Hajek below.
So what happens is when guys get the chance to come in, you want to prove yourself and stay in the lineup. It has been for years and years and years, ”said Smith. ‘I know you said’ improvised ‘, but everyone is trying to get better and strive to get that job and keep that job.
“For us it was not like trying to keep it simple. We want to play a simpler game and get pucks on the net and help our attackers. I don’t like the whole makeshift thing, but I like how we responded. I thought we played well as D Corps. “
Smith named colleagues Johnson, Bitetto and Hajek for their strong play before naming Fox and Lindgren as Batman and Robin.
Holy Makeshift, the Rangers won a match. It might not have been pretty, and it didn’t come easy, but they certainly deserved it.