A halt in the schedule wasn’t enough to stop the Rangers’ momentum Wednesday – not against the struggling Philadelphia Flyers, anyway – as the Blueshirts opened a three-game homestand at Madison Square Garden with a 4-1 victory. They've won fourth straight, and eight of nine.
The victory was also the sixth straight at home for the Rangers, and lifted their record to 14-4-3, while extending the Flyers’ losing streak to seven games.
But the win was not without worry for the Rangers. Versatile forward Barclay Goodrow left early after being struck in the face with a puck. His status was not immediately known.
The Rangers’ penalty-killing unit, and goaltender Igor Shesterkin (33 saves), played huge parts in this victory. The penalty-killers were 3-for-3, but one of those kills was a five-minute major power play in the second period, in which Shesterkin played a starring role, with seven saves.
With Sunday’s Islanders game having been postponed, it had been four days between games for the Rangers, but, facing the reeling Flyers, it didn’t seem to have had any kind of negative effect on Gerard Gallant’s club.
"I think the guys feel good,’’ Gallant said before the game. "They feel refreshed. I know I do. And hopefully they'll play well. But sometimes it goes the other way too, when you get too much time off. So, we're hoping we play well and keep it going the way we've been playing lately.’’
They got off to a good start when Jacob Trouba blasted home a shot from the point on the power play to get the Rangers on the board first, at 3:41 of the first period. The goal was the first of the season from the Rangers’ second power-play unit, which gets a lot less time than the first unit.
Dryden Hunt, playing his third game up on the first line, with Artemi Panarin and Ryan Strome, was robbed by Flyers goalie Carter Hart’s glove on a one-timer from the slot, but Hunt got Hart on his next shift, scoring on a two-on-one break to make it 2-0, at 9:32. It was the second straight game with a goal for Hunt, who had spent most of the season on the fourth line before being promoted to play with Panarin and Strome.
At that point, the game looked as though it could end up being a blowout, but the Flyers got a break when Kevin Rooney’s apparent tap-in goal was disallowed when the linesman ruled that the Rangers were offside entering the zone. The Garden crowd didn’t like the call when they saw the replay, which, at best, seemed inconclusive, but the call stood, and the Rangers were only up 2-0 when the first period ended.
They made it 3-0 in the first minute of the second, though, when Chris Kreider scored his team-leading 16th goal of the season as he banged in a pass from Kaapo Kakko (two assists), after Trouba stole a poor clearing attempt by the Flyers and sent the puck to Mika Zibanejad on the left wing. Zibanejad sent it to Kakko below the right circle and Kakko relayed it to Kreider in the slot for the goal, at :34.
The Flyers had a golden chance to get back in the game when Hunt was given a five-minute major penalty for charging, and a game misconduct for hitting Philadelphia’s Justin Braun into the glass. But the Rangers killed the entire five-minute power play, with Shesterkin making seven saves, to keep the Rangers in control.
Philadelphia did get on the board when Morgan Frost jammed in a loose puck at 9:37 of the second period, to make it 3-1, but Shesterkin and the Rangers shut the door. Panarin added an empty netter in the final minute to finish the scoring.
