Post-trade deadline, the Rangers are off to a strong start heading into the final 20 games of the regular season.
They looked fast and agile in Saturday night’s 4-0 win over the Blues at Madison Square Garden. There, newly acquired forwards Jack Roslovic and Alex Wennberg played key roles in the team’s strong transition game in their Rangers debuts.
It was the first game of Peter Laviolette’s evaluation period to solidify the Blueshirts’ playoff lineup.
And the Rangers head coach must have liked what he saw from his starting position.
St. Louis gave the home team a lot of time and space in a game where the Rangers’ power play accounted for three of the four points.
The Rangers’ new fourth line of Jimmy Vesey, Barclay Goodrow and Matt Lempe produced a number of other impactful contributions throughout the night.
Goalie Igor Shesterkin continued his impressive improvement with 26 saves, his second shutout of the season.
Consistently flying through the neutral zone, the Rangers seemed to have possession of the puck more often while the Blues struggled to present much of a challenge defensively.
This is all in preparation for the absence of captain Jacob Trouba, who will be out for two to three weeks with a lower-body injury.
Of course, that forced Laviolette to change his defensive pairing and bring Zach Jones back into the lineup. The pair of Ryan Lindgren and Adam Fox remained, with Jones skating to the left of Erik Gustafsson on the bottom pair.
Braden Schneider will take Trouba’s place on the right side of Quandre Miller, with the two young blueliners primarily playing against the Blues’ top line of Pavel Buchnevich, Robert Thomas, and Jordan Kyrou. He made a sharp move.
The Rangers entered their second power play less than five minutes into the game, and former Blueshirt Kevin Hayes converted St. Louis’ second slashing penalty at 2:26.
Roslovic and Wennberg skated with the team’s second unit, but it was the top group that took the lead.
Artemi Panarin, who skated at the top of the zone and found the lane, finally found the lane and sent the puck in. After Vincent Trocheck hooked his stick on the puck, the puck bounced off the stick of Blues defenseman Colton Parayko, giving the Rangers a 1-0 victory. lead.
Jimmy Vesey then doubled the Rangers’ lead on a partial breakaway with seconds left in the first period.
The Rangers nearly put the game in jeopardy at 3-0 early in the middle after Matt Lempe helped force a turnover in the defensive zone and exploded on a one-timer set up by Barclay Goodrow on the other end. was.
The referees reviewed the play and ultimately ruled that the puck bounced off both posts and did not completely cross the goal line.
Chris Kreider and Kaapo Kakko then each scored power-play goals in the third period to bring the game to a close.
