The Rangers’ game Monday night may have been against the Devils, but Tuesday’s game was all about the Hurricanes.
We are satisfied with the 3-1 win and two points against a Devils team that finished last year’s season and is currently on the outside looking at the playoffs.
Doing so was imperative if the Rangers, who trail Carolina by four points in the Metropolitan Division standings, wanted a chance to build on the Canes in Tuesday’s game in Raleigh, North Carolina.
With their third straight-up win over the Devils this season, the Rangers are poised to accomplish just that.
“[The Hurricanes are] He was right behind us,” said Ryan, who played a key role in stopping the Devils’ five-minute power play in the second period after Matt Lempe was ejected for the second time against the Devils for head contact. Lindgren said.
“Obviously, they’ve been playing really good hockey lately. Every point is big. [Tuesday] It’s definitely going to be big.”
Jonathan Quick did just that with a 20-save performance, giving the 38-year-old netminder his 389 wins, the 15th in NHL history behind Dominik Hasek.
As a result, the Hurricanes will have Igor Shesterkin in goal on Tuesday to keep pace with the first-place Rangers.
This particular back-to-back slate comes at a critical time as teams begin to look toward making the playoffs.
The Rangers have been the No. 1 team in the metro since Oct. 24, and the Hurricanes are currently the only team in that range.
This is how Carolina will go into the game, and how it will go into some of the games when the two clubs meet for the third and final time this regular season.
“This is a team that will compete for that spot,” said Mika Zibanejad, who scored his first 5-on-5 goal since Dec. 23 in the win. “It’s going to be a tough game and it’s going to be a good challenge.”
The Devils continued to adjust with the departure of head coach Lindy Ruff and the promotion of assistant Travis Green, which tipped the scales in favor of the Blueshirts for much of the 60-minute game.
After Zibanejad took the lead by backhanding the puck past new Devils goaltender Kaapo Kahkonen, the Rangers extended the lead to two points on Erik Gustafsson’s shot from the top of the zone while Lempe was screening up front. spread out.
Rempe, making his 10th career appearance, received another major penalty and game violation for hitting Jonas Siegenthaler with a high elbow against the Devils.
The Devils took exception, as they did on Feb. 22 in Newark when a 21-year-old hit Nathan Bastian 13 seconds into the shift.
The 6-foot-8 forward, who will likely be suspended for the hit, then waved to the Devils as he was escorted off the ice by officials.
This brings Lempe’s stat line to 32 penalty minutes and two ejections in 5:01 of ice time against the Devils in his short NHL career.
Head coach Peter Laviolette said of Rempe, “He had a really strong game, I thought the goal was completely credit to him.” “He made a good shift, came back and got all the way to the front of the net, but we ended up leaving him there. I think he was just chasing hits. Until I looked at him again. I don’t really want to comment.”
