NEW YORK — The Rangers, clamoring all season for a top-six right wing season, may have caught the NHL off-guard by pulling the trigger three weeks before the trade deadline on Thursday’s deal to acquire sniper Vladimir Tarasenko from the St. Louis Blues.
And then less than three minutes into his Rangers debut Friday against the Seattle Kraken at Madison Square Garden, Tarasenko made Rangers GM Chris Drury look good for acting so early.
Tarasenko got the sellout Garden crowd buzzing when he drove the net to tap in a feed from his longtime friend Artemi Panarin for his first goal as a Ranger, and that started the Blueshirts off on the right skate and on the way to a 6-3 victory that gave them a sweep of their four-game homestand.
Rangers coach Gerard Gallant, though, is not likely going to be happy about the fact the Rangers scored the first four goals of the game, but then let Seattle back into it late.
The entire Rangers lineup seemed energized early in the game, by the additions of Tarasenko and defenseman Niko Mikkola from the Blues, in exchange for a conditional first-round pick this summer, a conditional fourth-rounder next summer, plus forward Sammy Blais and minor league defenseman Hunter Skinner.
Panarin, who at the morning skate said he was “more happy than anyone’’ to have Tarasenko join the team, was flying in the first period. And so was Kaapo Kakko, the young Finnish forward who was happy to have his countryman, Mikkola, on the team as well.
Kakko scored his first goal since before Christmas, ending a drought of 16 games, and goals by Vincent Trocheck and Jacob Trouba — playing on a revamped second power-play unit — gave the Rangers a 4-0 lead barely more than one minute into the second period.
But as they did Wednesday in their win over Vancouver, the Rangers let up and Seattle tightened the score. Oliver Bjorkstrand scored for Seattle at 2:07 of the second period, 1:04 after Trouba’s goal, to make it 4-1. Then, after Mika Zibanejad scored on a power play to make it 5-1 at 3:19 of the third period, the Kraken got two goals 22 seconds apart to make it 5-3.
The first came with Mikkola serving the second of his three penalties, when Jared McCann beat Igor Shesterkin (26 saves) with a long, screened slapshot at 5:59, and the second when Brandon Tanev got behind Braden Schneider and scored his 10th goal of the season at 6:21.
The Rangers (30-14-8), managed to kill the third penalty to Mikkola, a shooting the puck over the glass penalty that replay showed deflected off a Seattle player’s stick and shouldn’t have been a penalty.
Then Ryan Lindgren, with the Rangers shorthanded, scored his first goal of the season into an empty net with 2:09 remaining. The Rangers closed out their fourth straight win and fifth in six games (5-0-1). They now embark on a four-game trip that begins Saturday in Carolina and shifts to Western Canada next week.
At the Rangers’ morning skate at their practice facility in Greenburgh, N.Y., Panarin talked about his friendship with Tarasenko, whom he met playing for Russia at the 2010-11 World Junior Championships.
“We're happy to have him in our team,’’ Panarin said. “He is my old friend, and of course I'm happy. More happy than everyone.’’
Gallant wasted no time putting Tarasenko, a left-handed-shooting right wing, on the Rangers’ top line, with Panarin and Zibanejad. And he put Tarasenko on the second power play unit, which had a whole new look, as Gallant moved red-hot Filip Chytil up to the first unit, and dropped Trocheck down to the second. Chytil’s five-game goal-scoring streak came to an end, though.
Tarasenko, who had 10 goals and 19 assists in 38 games for St. Louis this season, and 41 goals in 90 playoff games in his career, said he didn’t consider himself to be just a shooter on the top line, however.
“If somebody's open, I’ll give him the puck,’’ he said. “I think you cannot just focus to be only a shooter. Yeah, I want to score, but just need to play the game, and if guys are creating chances for you, you have to try to score them. If they're open, just move the puck to them.’’
