MONTREAL _ Up and down the Rangers continue to go. This time, the ups and downs all came during a single game against the Canadiens at the Bell Centre.
In what has to be the wildest game they've played this season, the Rangers bounced back in a huge way after Friday's disappointing loss in Ottawa. They rallied from four goals down Saturday night to beat Montreal, 6-5, with Jacob Trouba getting the winning goal at 12:10 of the third period, before a full house that included plenty of Rangers fans who made the trip to Canada for the weekend.
Before the game, Rangers coach David Quinn had complained that his team needed to "do a better job understanding that during the course of a game you might have some bad moments and if it happens to us early, we're having a difficult time stopping it and, you know, turning things around."
Not only were they able to dig their way all the way out of a 4-0 hole, but they managed to stop the Canadiens on five power plays, including one that came with 6:23 remaining when the Rangers were called for a penalty for too many men on the ice, their second such penalty in two nights.
The penalty killers did the job and goaltender Alexandar Georgiev, who was shaky for the first 25 minutes, fought through it and made 38 saves to earn the Rangers (10-9-2) a split of their weekend trip.
Quinn said the team's inconsistency was addressed in Saturday's pregame meeting, and the team did come out playing harder and more responsibly than it had on Friday night. Unfortunately for them, Georgiev struggled and allowed three goals _ on just 18 shots _ in the first period.
Max Domi had two of the goals. He was in the right place at the right time _ right on top of the goal crease _ when Georgiev saved a shot by Nick Suzuki but lost track of the rebound. Domi swept it in for his fifth goal of the season at 2:03.
Artturi Lehkonen whipped a wrist shot past Trouba and over Georgiev's catching glove to make it 2-0 at 10:00, and Domi beat Georgiev on a long shot through traffic to make it 3-0 with 33.3 seconds left.
Shea Weber beat Georgiev with another long shot to make it 4-0 at 2:51 of the second period, which is when the Rangers staged an unlikely rally in which they scored three goals in a span of 3:21 to pull within 4-3.
It began with Filip Chytil one-timing a cross-ice pass from Artemi Panarin for his seventh goal at 6:10. Pavel Buchnevich scored a lucky goal at 7:06 when he drove to the net and lost the puck off his stick as he got to the slot. The puck, though, bounced off a Canadiens defenseman, ricocheted off the back of goalie Carey Price, and slid in.
Two seconds after their first power play of the game expired, the Rangers got their third goal when Brendan Lemieux deflected in a shot by Adam Fox at 9:30 for his second goal of the season.
The craziness continued in the third period, when Lehkonen scored his second goal of the game, at 5:20, to put the Canadiens up, 5-3. But the Rangers fought back after Quinn juggled his lines in the third period trying to find something. Panarin finished a pretty, blind, backhand pass from Chris Kreider to make it 5-4. Then, with Panarin in the box for an interference penalty, Lemieux and Brett Howden broke away on a 2-on-1 break, with Howden feeding Lemieux for the game-tying goal at 8:40.
