Missing a couple pieces from his lineup for Monday’s game at the Garden against the L.A. Kings, Rangers coach Gerard Gallant did some shuffling of his lines that included putting his three highest-scoring forwards on the same unit.
The combination of Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin lasted little more than a period together before Gallant switched things up, and then switched them up again.
In the end, it was a defenseman who secured the two points for the Rangers, though. Adam Fox scored the winning goal in the shootout to give the Rangers a 3-2 come-from-behind win, their second straight.
Barclay Goodrow’s deflection of Panarin’s shot tied the game, 2-2, with 5:45 remaining in regulation to force the overtime. The Rangers had a golden chance to win in regulation or the opening minute of overtime as L.A.’s Philip Danault was sent off for tripping with 1:14 remaining, but the Rangers’ power play could not score either in regulation or the first 46 seconds of overtime and the game went to the shootout.
Chris Kreider, who, earlier in the day, was named the NHL’s First Star of the Week, opened the scoring with his 30th goal of the season – the first time he’s reached the 30-goal plateau – with 1.5 seconds remaining in the first period. The Rangers got the power play when former Ranger Brendan Lemieux was given a five-minute major and game misconduct for boarding Ryan Lindgren. Lindgren, who was slow to get up and appeared to need some repair work for a cut on his nose, was penalized for cross-checking when he got up and charged into Lemieux.
The two penalties left the teams playing four-on-four for two minutes and then the Rangers had a three-minute power play in which they were free to score as many power play goals as they could before it expired. Kreider scored when Adam Fox drove down the right alley and, with time running down and everyone shifted over to play a shot, Fox instead sent a pass to Kreider, who was wide open on top of the goal crease. He simply deflected the pass into a wide open net.
"This year he’s been, I think, playing play to his strengths a lot more,’’ Mika Zibanejad said of Kreider at the morning skate. "He’s a lot more consistent, too. I feel like he's -- it's weird to say, what is he, 30? 31? Yeah, I mean just for, you know, at that age [laugh] I feel like he's, you know, he's getting better. And I think, it might be, not be the coolest role, or the ones you see on Instagram on YouTube and all that stuff, but the stuff he does, he does better than anyone else, I feel like.’’
The Rangers failed to add to their lead on the rest of the major power play, though, and Kings goalie Jonathan Quick made a world class glove save on Jacob Trouba to keep it at 1-0 before L.A.’s Blake Lizotte tied the game with a wrist shot off the rush that beat goalie Igor Shesterkin at 11:55.
The Rangers got another power play, when Danault was called for tripping Goodrow, but the Rangers were unable to score. And then, Panarin thought he’d scored on a backhand roof shot, but play continued and when it stopped, video replay confirmed that Panarin’s shot had hit the crossbar and bounced out.
To make matters worse, Goodrow was called for a double-minor high sticking penalty against Adrian Kempe at that point, and Alex Iafallo scored on a backhander to put L.A. ahead, 2-1 at 19:21 of the second period.
