Rangers 6, Canucks 2: Garand answers the call without Shesterkin
New York scored three times in the third period in its first game since Igor Shesterkin was ruled out for the season.
The New York Rangers began life without Igor Shesterkin with a 6-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, pulling away with three goals in the third period.
A new number one
Shesterkin was ruled out for the rest of the season with a lower-body injury, the NHL.com recap reports. He was hurt in Friday's 3-1 loss to Washington, and the club announced the injury on Saturday. That made Sunday the first game of the Dylan Garand era: he stopped 19 shots and took the win, and afterwards credited the group for stepping up in response to the loss of its starter.
How the scoring went
Tye Kartye scored 27 seconds into the game, but Jake DeBrusk tied it for Vancouver at 17:04 of the first period with a shot from a sharp angle on the left side. Will Cuylle restored the lead early in the second, and Elias Pettersson levelled it again at 16:56 of that period with a short-handed goal, the first of his career. The Rangers did not stay level for long: Kartye struck again at 18:25, finishing from the left circle after J.T. Miller and Vladislav Gavrikov helped spring the breakout, and New York went to the second intermission up 3-2.
The third period decided it. Alexis Lafreniere scored on the power play 1:04 in, with Gabe Perreault assisting, to make it 4-2. Vancouver's Kevin Lankinen had been out of his crease after contact with Miller; the officials conferred, the goal stood, and the Canucks did not challenge. Perreault added a deflection of an Adam Fox shot at 5:57, and Cuylle finished off a rebound at 15:22 for his second of the night. Lankinen also stopped 19 shots.
Per NHL.com, New York has now outscored opponents 9-1 in the third period at home this season. Perreault had taken over the first power-play unit at the start of the third, replacing Pavel Dorofeyev; coach Mike Sullivan said Dorofeyev "was fighting it a little bit." Mika Zibanejad also became the third player in franchise history with at least 250 power-play points for the Rangers, joining Brian Leetch and Rod Gilbert.
What it means
The Rangers are 5-2-0, and 4-0-0 at home. Garand now steps in as the club's No. 1 goalie. Vancouver is 2-5-0 and has lost four in a row. Canucks coach Manny Malhotra pointed to a "lack of details" and "lack of intensity," and Drew O'Connor said the team was in the game through two periods before giving up a goal on the penalty kill that let things "snowball."