Friday afternoon's game in Philadelphia was 1-3, but Artemi Panarin had a particularly gruesome performance late in the first period when he was shoved by Travis Konecny and then accosted by two people in black and orange. None of his teammates rushed to cheer him on.
But when the Canadiens played at the Garden 24 hours later, it was 3-on-3, maybe 5-on-5, and maybe 6-on-5 — Jacob Trouba hitting Justin Barron in Montreal on Oct. 22. Given the humiliation of being crushed 7-2 in a shootout, trademark hits in the third period — they wanted to start something, and they did it multiple times.
The Rangers showed the group mentality they had lacked in recent weeks and halted a five-game losing streak in regulation in a 4-3 victory over the Habs on Kaapo Kakko's power-play goal at 19:36 of the third period. I fastened it with a belt.
This wasn't very Picasso. It might have hurt even more considering the Blueshirts took a 3-1 lead after the second period against a team ranked 29th overall in the league. But after a week of chaos and generally bad hockey, the Rangers ended up putting it in the frame.
