Rangers 4 Wild 2
You can just set your clock to these Rangers, who win every 27 days no matter the obstacles confronting them.
Yes, wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, the Blueshirts did get themselves a victory last night by outdoing the expansion Wild, 4-2 at the Garden, their first since Dec. 27, their first after going nine straight (0-7-1-1) without leaving the ice with two points in their pockets. More than that, it propelled the Rangers to within one point of 23rd-overall Minnesota.
What more could one ask?
Actually, all condescension and sarcasm aside, the win was a fairly important one following Saturday’s implosion in Boston that left the imperial Rangers without clothes; important for team psyche, more important than that for Mike Richter, who had made for an easy management scapegoat.
Glen Sather sure hasn’t been shy in fingering the goaltender as the party most guilty for the 17-24-2-1 record that has the Rangers as close to last place overall in the NHL – seven points – as they are to a playoff berth. On Saturday, the GM even decided to volunteer the information that he had contacted the agent for the semi-retired Tom Barrasso, a plant meant less for the public than for Richter, himself.
If the best goaltender in franchise history took it personally – if he’s taken the hits personally that have been coming for a month now – he wouldn’t say so. Instead, all No. 35 did last night was win his team a hockey game it simply had to have to avoid a mid-January bloodletting.
“I know what I’m capa- ble of doing and I believe [management] knows, too,” said Richter, who has now surrendered four goals over his last two starts. “It’s been frustrating knowing that instead of being the guy to help the team get out of our funk that I’ve been one of the players struggling a bit.
“But as far as what people might be saying, the only answer for me is to play as well as I’m capable of playing and get my game in order. If I do that, everything else should fall into place.”
Richter was at his best during a 1:35 five-on-three penalty kill in the final minutes of the first period in which the Rangers had taken a 2-1 lead on a pair of goals from an explosive yet contained Brian Leetch. With Leetch and Mark Messier in the box, with Rich Pilon, (plus-four) Alexei Gusarov and Mike York in front of him, Richter was sensational, making a series of acrobatic saves as the Wild closed in on him.
He was up, he was down, he was on his back, he was on his belly, he was moving to his right, he was moving to his left. He was stopping seven shots in whatever way necessary in the final 1:27 of the period.
“Mike was the reason we won,” said Leetch, whose plus-three represented his first multiple-plus game since Nov. 28. “When he made those saves on the five-on-three, that changed the whole tide of the game.”
“I thought Mike was great; he made about five saves that were awesome in that five-on-three,” Ron Low said. “You know, you can have all the names out there you want, but it still comes down to Mike is our guy.
“He’s the guy who has to carry us.”
Low made some changes last night, he surely did. He scratched Sylvain Lefebvre for the first time, sitting him in favor of Dale Purinton. He moved Theo Fleury from the point to up front on the power play for the first time this season, going with either Kim Johnsson or Gusarov across the blue line from Leetch. Alas, that did not help a power play unit that went 0-for-6 including a pair of two-man advantages equalling 2:54, and has now scored once on its last 52 opportunities.
Low also went with a legitimate four-line rotation, allotting ice time to his forwards more discriminately than in any other game this season. Adam Graves, who got the goal that gave the Rangers a 3-1 lead early in the third – his 300th and first in 10 games – played only 8:00, 12th among forwards while Manny Malhotra got 10:57, Michalk Grosek 11:56 and Eric Lacroix, 11:13.
Valeri Kamensky, who took a huge hit to set up Graves’ score – and then got to his feet and shot his arm up in an emotional and universally understood display to the fans who had booed him every time he touched the puck – played 11:24, eighth among forwards. Mark Messier, still insisting that he isn’t playing injured even while going through his ninth consecutive game without a point, played 13:44, sixth among forwards, and his smallest helping of the season.
“As a team and an organization, the atmosphere has been very difficult around here; the frustration level has been enormous,” Richter said. “But you can’t give into it. You have to keep fighting.”
So last night the Rangers got a win. Tomorrow night, the Flyers are here.
In 27 days, however, the Blueshirts are idle.