With the faltering Sabers carrying their 13-game losing skid to the Garden on Monday night, there were instances where the Rangers played their opponents, as they have often done this season.
However, the Blueshirts kept connecting the dots on the attack and took a 5-3 victory, sending the Sabers on their way with one more loss to bear.
There was a great need for familiarity throughout the line-up to start the season, and it looks like the Rangers are starting to establish this. As the Rangers outperformed their opponents 26-11 in the last six games, including 18-6 in the last four.
“I think the main reason the violation is coming is [Mika] Zibanejad, now you play that line like last year and they are going to contribute, ”said acting head coach Kris Knoblauch of the top line, which together delivered two goals and two assists. “I think [Ryan] Tree, [Artemi] Panarin, all year round [have been] fairly consistent.
“But now with Zibanejad who plays just as well as he does [Chris] Kreider and [Pavel Buchnevich], they are currently one of the best lines in the league. “
From the power play, penalty kill, even strength and five-on-three, the Rangers recently found ways to put the puck in the back of the net. And there will be another offensive weapon in their arsenal soon enough, with Vitali Kravtsov expected to join the team as early as Tuesday if he erased the rest of the NHL’s COVID-19 protocols.
While their offense is being revived, the Rangers are still caught coming out of hiatus. The Sabers scored all three goals within the first five minutes of the second and third periods.
Buffalo scored two early goals in the third to make it a 3-3 tie, but the Rangers were able to rely on the players who were – and should be – their attack after struggling earlier in the season to do this. Behind two power play goals from Kreider and two goals from Kaapo Kakko, including an empty net, the Rangers prevailed.
“I feel like we’re making it a little bit too complicated, we’re trying to do a little bit too much and of course that can’t happen,” said Zibanejad of the team’s slow start over the past two periods. ‘Even after one nothing I think [goaltender] Keith [Kinkaid] saves us and keeps us in this game and big ups for him. Of course it has to get a lot better, but we get away with this with two points and we are happy with that. “
Adam Fox, who skated in his 100th game with the Rangers, scored a goal and two assists – including one on Kreider’s starting point at 5:47 of the third. And Panarin was Panarin, who recorded an evening with three assistants.
Just 2:53 left in the game, all of Julien Gauthier’s 6-foot-4 stormed into Sabers netminder Carter Hutton, sending him to the locker room with the advantage of his left leg. As a result, Dustin Tokarski – who had a one-season cameo at the Rangers’ AHL affiliate in 2018/19 – for his first NHL appearance since October 8, 2016.
So when Rasmus Asplund gave Buffalo a 1-0 lead at 3:52 of the second, the possibility of losing to a Sabers team that’s located in the basement of not just the East but the entire NHL – and now without it starting goalkeeper – have awakened the Blueshirts. They quickly turned and scored three consecutive goals to take a 3-1 lead in the last 20 minutes.
The difference between the Rangers at the start of the season and the Rangers who won on Monday was the attacking chemistry that enabled them to do so.