WINNIPEG, Manitoba. The Rangers’ first game in the Central Division with four cities couldn’t have gone better under the circumstances.
Despite a depleted lineup that included a pair of minor league footholds and a bunch of penalties, the Rangers fought their way to a 4-1 win over the Jets on Sunday night at the Canada Life Center. The win tied the Rangers with the Penguins with 77 points and finished second in the Capital Division with a game in hand and two more wins.
Head coach Gérard Galland chose 11 forwards and 7 defenders for the first time this season, surprisingly losing to Julien Gauthier, who had played the previous 14 games in a row. Greg McKegg was also unavailable for personal reasons, which Gallant said would remove the forward from that trip.
This brought Libor Hayek into the line-up for the first time since February 1, while Gaultier and Morgan Barron were in streetwear.
Rangers celebrate in first period.USA TODAY Sports
Perhaps the hope was that Hayek could showcase himself to potentially increase his trading value as the March 21st deadline approaches. Maybe there are serious concerns about Barron’s performance in the front office. Maybe something else.
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“At this time of the year when Libor takes the field, he hasn’t played in a while and when he was there he played well,” Gallant said of his decision to go with seven defenders. “So we just thought we’d hit a few minutes before the first game of the away game. Everything went fine. Nobody likes to play seven Ds, but I think it worked.”
So the Rangers bottom six had a pair of AHL players in Johnny Brodzinski and Tim Gettinger, while second-line center Ryan Strom got a healthy dose of double shifts. Gallant admitted that he doesn’t dress in such a structured line-up very often.
Chris Kreider scores in the first period against the Jets. AP
“We thought about it [Saturday] a little and we all agreed it was a good idea,” he said. “We’ll see. It’s not something I do very often, but we’ll see what happens.”
However, the majority of the play was in full swing, with Chris Kreider pushing on and scoring 50 goals for his 37th and 38th of the season, and goaltender Igor Shesterkin equaled his season high with a staggering 45 saves.
The Rangers really struggled to stay out of the box for most of the game, allowing three penalties in the first, two in the second and another in the final frame. In their fifth powerplay game of the night, the Jets closed the Rangers’ lead 2-1 after a Nikolai Ehlers goal at 13:45 of the middle frame.
Igor Shesterkin makes a save in the third period. AP
Shesterkin had to make 17 saves in the third period, while Kreider and Mika Zibanejad extended the Rangers lead. But, as usual, the Russian networker did it without much effort. After improving his career to 10-0-0 with over 40 saves in a game, Shesterkin also became only the second goaltender since 1955-56 to win each of his first 10 or more games with that many stops.
Asked if he was physically fit for the rest of the trip, and which substitute Alexander Georgiev would presumably get at least one start on, Shesterkin said he would play every night if needed.
However, at the end of the second period, Shesterkin lingered a little at the gate before slowly making his way to the tunnel. He said he just wanted to relax a bit.
But doesn’t he prefer a heavy load so as not to be distracted from the game?
“I like it, but today I’m a little tired,” he said with a smile.