First Period:
- PPG – Adam Fox (5) ASST: Kaapo Kakko (5), Jacob Trouba (9)
Second Period:
Third Period:
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- SHG – Mika Zibanejad (6) ASST: Brendan Lemieux (7)
- SHG – Jesper Fast (3) ASST: Mika Zibanejad (8), Jacob Trouba (10)
- EN – Brady Skjei (4)
Stats:
David Quinn spoke after the game and said (NYR):
- On the game, “certainly not the way you draw up winning a hockey game, taking that many penalties and all those penalty minutes to kill but so proud of our guys for how we found a way to win, really gutted it out on the PK, we went through that stretch with our PK really hurting us and ever since that Florida trip our PK has been very good statistically and it’s looked good. I give Lindy a lot of credit, he worked awful hard and our guys really responded. That being said, you go from one extreme to the other, which tends to be our habit no matter what topic it is. We go from one penalty yesterday to 7 or 8 today and an abundance of minutes. Just a gutsy effort, I loved our game from the get-go, a lot of enthusiasm, pace to it, just a real good effort by a lot of guys.”
- On Jacob Trouba, “he was huge, him and Brady and Libor and Lindgren really did a heck of a job eating up a lot of minutes on the PK. Jacob really did a great job getting out to that flank. They had a hard time getting pucks to the net because of it. Him and Brady did a great job clearing pucks, they got caught in there one time for a minute and a half and really willed their way to killing that off and getting the puck out. Troubs had a big night tonight.”
- On the line changes, “4-0, I’m happy with the results. I liked what I saw 5 on 5, having those four centers gives us more balance and there is a little bit of everything on each line and it was something we were looking to do and thought about for a while.”
- On moving Kakko up, “one of two things happens when you have a player of his talent that is struggling. You can either demote him and put him on the fourth line and take him off the PP or you can give him one more opportunity to get engaged and get their game where he and we need his game to be and I loved how he responded. That was his best game in a while.”
- On Georgiev, “big, he stood tall. I know it’s 4-0 and when you kill that many penalties your goalie needs to be good and he was good when he needed to be and at 5 on 5. In the first period we did a lot of good things but unfortunately some turnovers ignited their opportunities on the rush, I thought we gave up too many rush chances tonight which we hadn’t been doing but Georgie had a big part in this one, that is for sure.”
Adam Rotter:
- This was one that could have turned ugly with all the Rangers parade to the penalty box, but lucky for them they were facing the Devils today. The Rangers were strong on the PK in their own right, but like the Rangers on Friday, the Devils didn’t seem to have any clue of what to do on the PP.
- Alex Georgiev was strong when he had to be in a nice bounce back for him.
- Mika Zibanejad was outstanding, Kaapo Kakko had a great first period and Ryan Lindgren was a monster on defense.
- So the Rangers are 4-0-1 in their last five and have some more good tests this week (Vegas, Columbus, Montreal rematch) before heading out West.