Maybe this just what the Rangers needed — a boring old chess match, and a win.
Having seen their game improve over the past two weeks, the results haven’t exactly been commensurate, and Monday night at the Garden looked liked it was shaping up into another hard-luck loss.
But goals bookending the third period erased a 1-0 deficit and finished with a much-needed 2-1 win over the Bruins.
Pushing for something, anything, against the air-tight — and wickedly conservative — Bruins (21-15-5), the Rangers (23-14-5) neared the end of the third period tied 1-1 and started firing shots at the net en masse. Finally, a Keith Yandle point shot was deflected by Jesper Fast in front, around Boston goalie Tuukka Rask and in, giving the Rangers that 2-1 lead with 1:42 remaining.
And this time, it was a lead that held up.
“I think the last couple of weeks, we’ve been working really hard and we didn’t really have the bounces with us,” said the unheralded Fast. “So it was a nice feeling to get a win in this type of game. It’s not often I’m on the ice and scoring the last goal in the game. Obviously, it’s a great feeling.”
Those final 100 seconds were a study in anxiousness, especially in light of what happened on Saturday afternoon against the Capitals, when goalie Henrik Lundqvist surrendered a game-tying goal with 5.7 seconds remaining in regulation en route to a 4-3 overtime loss.
This time, the Rangers had just five defensemen available, as Dan Girardi was in the locker room since four minutes into the second period with a hand laceration. In the final minute of the third, with Rask on the bench and the extra attacker on, it was Brad Marchand — because of course it was him — half-shanking a backhand attempt that Lundqvist had to squeeze his pads to stop, his stick lost on the ice in the preceding melee.
Asked if he had a flashback to Saturday, Lundqvist let go of a coy little smile.
“That last shot I did,” he said. “I needed to squeeze my pad. I had quick thought — not again.”
Marchand, remember, was the one that ran into Lundqvist back when these teams squared off in a very different type of game on the Friday after Thanksgiving, one filled with contentiousness. But as this third period started and the Bruins had been staked to a 1-0 lead on a second-period Jimmy Hayes goal — one from the high slot that Lundqvist surely wanted back — there was very little angst on the ice or energy in the building.
Just 35 seconds into the third, captain Ryan McDonagh made “an unbelievable play on the wall,” as described by coach Alain Vigneault, getting the puck to Mats Zuccarello, who drove the net and made a tidy little pass to Derick Brassard at the far post, who lifted the puck past Rask to tie it, 1-1.
“That team doesn’t give you a whole lot,” said Brassard, now with 15 goals in the first 42 games of the season, second on the team to Zuccarello’s 16. “We just stayed patient, and then in the third period, we just wanted the game more than they did. That’s why we won the game.”
Two minutes after Brassard’s goal, Lundqvist made a new rendition of the “Scorpion save,” lifting his right leg while on his stomach to get a blade on a Max Talbot shot and send it wide, keeping the score tied. It was the type of play that might not have been made during the team’s November-December malaise. But a run of 4-2-1 over the past seven has now trumped the 3-9-2 record that preceded it, and the good feeling is starting to come back.
Just in time for a close three-game trip to face the Islanders, Flyers and Capitals, starting Thursday night in Brooklyn.
“I think it’s important we start focusing on the good things right now,” said Lundqvist. “Everyone is talking about how it’s been a tough month and a half, but the last two, three weeks, we are definitely moving in the right direction. It’s important that we stay positive right now.”