NEW YORK _ After the way they played in an ugly loss to the lowly Ottawa Senators at Madison Square Garden on Monday, the Rangers were badly in need of a bounce-back performance Wednesday against the equally lowly Detroit Red Wings.
And with No. 1 center Mika Zibanejad missing his fourth straight game _ still unable to play because of an upper-body injury the Rangers have said for 11 days was a day-to-day issue _ the Rangers did get that bounce back they were looking for, taking care of business against the Red Wings with a relatively stress-free 5-1 victory in the front end of a back-to-back that continues Thursday in Carolina against the Hurricanes.
Two power-play goals and a short-handed goal powered the Rangers, who improved to 6-6-1 on the season. Detroit, which entered the game tied with the Senators for the fewest points in the league (nine), fell to 4-12-1.
Henrik Lundqvist was back between the pipes for the Rangers, starting in goal for the first time since Oct. 27, when he played the first two periods (four goals allowed on 31 shots) against the Boston Bruins. Lundqvist entered Wednesday with a 2-3 record, .906 save percentage, and a 3.58 goals-against average. But Rangers coach David Quinn said at Wednesday's morning skate that Lundqvist has "had a good year," and "done a good job adapting to a reduced workload." Quinn even left open the possibility that the 37-year-old might play again Thursday in Carolina, in the back end of the back-to-back.
"We'll see how tonight goes, see what type of game develops," the coach said. "There's a chance he could play (Thursday)."
For much of the first 30 or so minutes, it didn't look as though Lundqvist was under much duress. Neither team generated much in the first period, which featured no goals, no penalties, and an 11-7 shot advantage for the Rangers, and then the home team got three goals in a span of four minutes, 24 seconds to take command early in the second period.
Two of the three goals came on the power play, with defenseman Tony DeAngelo, dropped to the second power-play unit after Adam Fox took his place with the first group, banged in the rebound of a shot by Brendan Lemieux for his fifth goal of the season, at 4:25, one second before a penalty to Detroit's Adam Erne expired. Chris Kreider snapped in a pass from Pavel Buchnevich to make it 2-0 at 6:04 of the period. Ryan Strome got credit for the third goal, when Fox's shot bounced off him and got behind Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard for Strome's fifth goal of the season at 8:49.
Less than a minute later, though, Detroit get one back when former Islander Valtteri Filppula scored his second goal of the season at 8:41. Filppula skated out of the Detroit zone with Andreas Athanasiou on a two-on-one against Rangers defenseman Jacob Trouba. Filppula passed to Athanasiou, up ahead on the left, and Trouba gambled that he could poke the puck away from Athanasiou. He lost, though, and Athanasiou got by him to create a two-on-zero against Lundqvist. Athanasiou drove to the net and played a backwards pass to Filppula, who shot it in past a helpless Lundqvist (35 saves) to make it 3-1.
Greg McKegg, returning to the lineup after sitting out the previous three games, scored a short-handed goal, his first goal as a Ranger, to make it 4-1 at 8:44 of the third period. Detroit pulled Howard for an extra skater with over five-and-a-half minutes left in regulation, and Artemi Panarin, the Blueshirts' top scorer, added an empty-net goal with 2:37 left.
