OVERTIME Rangers 4 Flyers 3
It was, without question and without exception, the most stunning night of this anything but stunning Ranger season.
And while it won’t be known for some time whether the dramatic 4-3 overtime Garden victory over the Flyers will provide the impetus for a genuine revival or instead stand on its own as some kind of bizarre aberration, this at least is clear:
Sometimes a little belief can go a long way . . . and sometimes a little man can go a long way, too.
“The thing that’s been bothering me the most about my season is that fact that even though I’d scored a lot of goals, I hadn’t scored a lot of big, big goals,” Theo Fleury said after scoring two of the biggest goals of the season, the one that tied the Flyers 3-3 with 2:52 to go in the third, the one that gave his team the victory with 2:14 remaining in OT.
“I’ve been disappointed that a lot of my goals haven’t really had a direct impact on wins.”
Fleury got the winner by crashing into Roman Cechmanek and thereby knocking the puck into the net after the goaltender had stopped the winger’s initial chip shot from 10 feet away at the end of extremely long shift. The little man had tied the score by driving to the net and snapping a left wing drive five-hole. One was prettier – and more unexpected – than the next.
“Theo just sucked it up,” said Brian Leetch, who had sent No. 14 in for the tying score. “I mean, our whole team did, but we’re at the point where we just have no choice.
“We’ve gotten ourselves into a hole and now there’s really nothing left for us to do but get ourselves out. It doesn’t have to be pretty. It’s just something that has to be done.”
The Rangers were finding themselves in all sorts of potholes last night. The one in the standings that has them seven points out of a playoff berth. The ones in last night’s match that had them down 2-0 late in the second and then 3-2 late in the third.
“What was encouraging was that we didn’t have a total breakdown when we got behind by two,” said Leetch, who will join starting forward Fleury skating for Team North America in the Feb. 4 All Star Game in Denver.
“We’ve talked about sticking with our plan and avoiding sags when we fall behind, so it was good to see that we were able to respond the way we did in this game.
“Because of the importance of the goals, I’d have to say this was my best game as a Ranger.”
Though the Rangers created almost no offense through two periods against Cechmanek, they were within two because of more than decent defensive zone coverage, truth be told. Ron Low stuck with the defense unit that had played capably in Sunday’s victory over Minnesota – the Blueshirts have now strung victories together for the first time since Dec. 6-8 – and was proved correct in going that route, so well did his team play down low against a Flyer squad that likes to muscle up around the net.
The forwards, too, seemed far more aware of their responsibility in their own end of the ice. Finally, a defensive concept seems to be emerging on Broadway.
“That’s one of the areas we’ve certainly stressed,” said Mark Messier, who made the first pass on the winning rink-length play before Valeri Kamensky made a neat relay to Fleury, and whose pair of assists ended a nine-game point-scoring drought.
“It’s important for us to take care of our own end and to persevere and play with some grit when things go against us.”
The Rangers got themselves out of the 2-0 deficit they’d faced since the 5:01 mark of the second when Tomas Kloucek broke his NHL maiden by throwing a long shot through a screen that found its way in at 18:09 of the period and when Radek Dvorak went to the net to bang in a power-play rebound -ending an 0-for-30 PP streak – at 9:51 of the third.
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Jan Hlavac missed the game with a badly bruised shoulder that he suffered during the second period of Sunday’s match. He is questionable for tomorrow night’s match against the Maple Leafs.