You have to keep track of perspective within a season, especially this wacky Rangers one. A weekend back-to-back like the one that just wrapped, a 1-0 shootout win over the Blue Jackets at home followed by a 5-4 overtime loss to the Canadiens in Montreal, would have been greeted with more disappointment than satisfaction if it had happened in October or early November.
If the Rangers, backed by elite goaltending from both Igor Shesterkin on Saturday and Jonathan Quick on Sunday, had this three-points-in-24-hours set during their awful December, there might have been a short parade to celebrate.
Now, with the Rangers up to 6-1-3 in their last 10, it’s two more games with encouraging signs up and down the lineup. All that was missing was finishing off a wild one in Montreal to get Quick his 400th career win, foiled by Patrik Laine in overtime.
But the Rangers have seemingly closed the door on the 4-15-0 slide from December, showing much more fight and fire the last three weeks — if perhaps still needing to clean up their game without the puck. The Canadiens, who gave up seven unanswered to the Leafs the night before, were faster to pucks most of Sunday but the Rangers competed like junkyard dogs most of the night.
That’s something you didn’t see a month ago. And while Sunday wasn’t a good result — the Canadiens moved two points ahead of the Rangers in the tight clutch of teams just outside the East wild-card spots — how the Rangers got there had lots of good signs.
I confidently declared a week ago in Vegas that this Rangers team, even if it gets further chopped up before the March 7 trade deadline, is making the playoffs. Nothing I’ve seen in the week since has changed my mind.
Let’s have some takeaways:
Still no 400th for Quick, but goaltending shines
He appeared to be in some pain in the second period after one of at least 10 acrobatic saves. He took a point-blank shot off the mask in the third that left him reeling. In the first he flailed around with pucks behind him twice in a matter of seconds and ended up with Juraj Slafkovsky’s stick instead of his own.
Jonathan Quick looked like he was going to let it all hang out to get that magical No. 400, but it wasn’t to be.
His teammates’ D-zone play and inability to keep the Canadiens at bay off the rush in the third ultimately did Quick’s shot at 400 in, with Slafkovsky burying a rebound off the rush in the third. The Rangers have been vastly improved defensively during this nine-game turnaround but some of the old, bad habits crept in Sunday.
Shesterkin was perfect the night before at the Garden, making 27 saves and three more in the shootout. No one escaped blame during the 19-game ugliness into the new year but the goaltending, which was this team’s saving grace during the 12-4-1 start, has risen back to the top in January.
Signs of life from the top nine
It’s hard to know which line fills which role these days, but Peter Laviolette has stuck with his top three lines for a few games here and each of them has had a positive impact. They each scored a five-on-five goal on Sunday.
We could stand to see more — more production, more consistency, more like the old days — from the Artemi Panarin–Vincent Trocheck–Alexis Lafrenière trio. Lafrenière converted a good bounce off the end wall for his third goal in the last 20 games to open the scoring, but that line has all but disappeared from the score sheet at even strength after dominating for a long while last season and at times this season.
Will Cuylle scored his first in 16 games on Sunday with a bit of forechecking help from Mika Zibanejad, who added a power-play goal in the second. Those two with Reilly Smith have been on for some goals against since they’ve been together — Cuylle’s goal was their first as a line despite coming into the game with 54.6 percent of chances and 57.9 percent of expected goals, according to Clear Sight Hockey — but they have meshed well.
Smith in particular has raised his steady game the last few weeks. You’re either happy that a potential trade chip is making himself more attractive or you’re happy he’s contributing to the revival, but it’s been noted for sure. Smith had a couple strong defensive plays against Columbus in the defensive zone.
And the Chris Kreider–Filip Chytil–Arthur Kaliyev line chipped in with a goal Sunday, Kreider’s 15th this season — a bit of a head shake that with all that’s gone on around Kreider, he’s still on pace for 25-28 goals. Kaliyev may not be long for that spot but he hasn’t hurt them and Chytil is moving exceptionally well.
The Rangers celebrate Alexis Lafrenière’s goal against the Canadiens, a sign of an improving top nine. (Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)
Compete, compete, compete
You can’t fully erase a 4-15-0 run, not in the standings and not in the eyes and heads of all those who watched this Rangers team fumble around for six weeks. But they have rediscovered a desire to fight — for pucks, for position and for each other.
Will Borgen made a hideous turnover that led to the Canadiens’ third tying goal in the second period but he also made as good a save in the third as any Quick made to, at the time, preserve the lead. K’Andre Miller didn’t have his best night either on Sunday, but he saved a goal going behind Quick in the first. Miller also hogtied Slafkovsky at the end of that same shift when the young Canadiens forward tried to get his stick back from Quick.
Matt Rempe got a couple third-period shifts on Sunday, a rarity for him (and maybe it still will be, since he barreled over Quick on one of them) and maybe a reward for stepping up to fight Canadiens heavyweight Arber Xhekaj, who was leading the charge in a very physical game. The Canadiens were chippy a lot of the night and the Rangers answered in kind.
It doesn’t cover up the flaws, but we knew this was a flawed team. We also didn’t think this team would ever, in its current form, compete this hard again.
This weekend also brought a fresh round of Miller-to-the-Rangers excitement, with Sportsnet reporting on Saturday night that Miller was headed towards being held out of the Canucks game with the Oilers as a precaution ahead of a possible deal to the Rangers.
This is an ongoing saga and one that may very well end with Miller returning to the team that drafted him 14 years ago. There’s been plenty of offers made between the clubs since before the 2021-22 deadline and nothing’s materialized yet. So even with that distraction lurking, the Rangers are still slowly putting themselves back together.
More opportunity ahead
The Senators come to the Garden on Tuesday, followed by the Flyers on Thursday and the Avalanche on Sunday. Ottawa sits in one of the two wild-card spots, four points ahead; the Flyers have the same 48 points as the Rangers, with an extra game played. There’s more opportunities here, more chances to keep moving up.
The winds of change won’t stop swirling around this team, not in the short term. Whether it’s the quest to remake the core by adding Miller, shipping out Ryan Lindgren, Smith or another regular to get some assets back for a pending UFA, or an unknown move coming up, the changes aren’t done.
But this group is also once again a team that cares what happens this season. This weekend added more points and more evidence of that, even if the last result wasn’t the one the Rangers wanted.
(Top photo of Jonathan Quick sprawling for a save: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
