Igor Shesterkin made 27 saves and stopped all three Columbus Blue Jackets shooters in the shootout to help the New York Rangers secure a 1-0 victory at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.
“We played awesome,” Shesterkin said about the Rangers’ defensive play.
This was Shesterkin’s first shutout since the season opener on October 9. He had allowed nine goals in five games since returning from an upper-body injury that had kept him out for four games.
Shesterkin successfully stopped Kent Johnson, Adam Fantilli, and Kirill Marchenko in the shootout.
The only goal of the shootout came from Vincent Trocheck, who scored in the second round.
The Rangers (22-20-3) have now won two consecutive games, four of their last five, and earned points in seven straight (5-0-2).
“Goaltending is huge,” said Rangers coach Peter Laviolette. “From a 5-on-5 standpoint, a penalty kill standpoint, from the confidence of your team, you play a game when you can get 0-0 to overtime you know he’s done his job. He’s played really well for us, and we need that. We’re in a position where we’ve got to win games, win points. He had to be sharp with his game tonight because we weren’t able to get the run support he needed to get out ahead.”
Blue Jackets goaltender Daniil Tarasov made 26 saves, including two key stops on Mika Zibanejad during overtime breakaways. Zibanejad was stopped at 1:25 and again with 17 seconds left in overtime. Despite Tarasov’s performance, the Blue Jackets (22-17-4) lost their first game since January 2, ending their six-game winning streak.
“It was a great hockey game,” said Blue Jackets coach Dean Evason. “Both teams played hard. It might not have been exciting as far as scoring goals, but the effort was there by both teams, the desperation was there by both teams, the patience. I really liked how our hockey club stayed within ourselves.
We didn’t panic, didn’t open it up. We gave up some stuff, but we got some stuff as well. Just comes down to a shootout and they find one, we don’t.”
Laviolette mentioned that the Rangers weren’t happy with how they played in the first period, where they were outshot 15-4. However, they outshot the Blue Jackets 22-12 over the rest of the game.
“The first period for me was a little bit off, probably gave up eight or nine chances,” said Laviolette, “and then maybe didn’t give up eight or nine for the rest of the game.”
Both teams had chances, but neither could score during the first two periods, which ended with a combined 35 shots on goal (20-15 in favor of the Blue Jackets). The third period saw just 10 shots between the teams (6-4 for New York).
Mikael Pyyhtia had a good opportunity late in the second period on a semi-breakaway, but Reilly Smith made a strong defensive play to prevent a scoring chance by stripping the puck away from Pyyhtia.
Smith later helped set up Adam Fox for a tip-in attempt, but Tarasov was able to make a save and cover the puck at 14:25 of the second period.
Earlier in the second, K’Andre Miller had a great chance from the slot after a rebound off Zibanejad’s shot, but Tarasov was quick to make the save at 4:19.
In the first period, Shesterkin made a great save on Cole Sillinger, stopping his redirect with a quick pad save at 4:40.
Chris Kreider also had a chance on a power play at 11:14, but he deflected Fox’s wrist shot off the right post.
“They’ve got skilled guys that are going to get chances, but after the first 10 [minutes] we settled in, had some looks ourselves,” Fox said. “Sometimes a boring game instead of a track meet is good. We did a good job of that today.”
Tarasov’s saves on Zibanejad’s breakaways in overtime kept the game tied and forced a shootout.
“He made some great saves on the breakaways that we gave up, that we’ve got to obviously look after a little bit,” said Evason. “He played a strong game, and I think everybody was committed in front of him as well.”
When the game moved to the shootout, Shesterkin remained solid, while Trocheck managed to score. Trocheck explained, “I was just going down to see what I can do,” and took the shot when he saw the blocker side open.
Shesterkin then stopped Fantilli after Trocheck scored and sealed the win by stopping Marchenko in the third round.
“I just saw he did a step right and I know righty players like to do high glove,” Shesterkin said, “but the puck a little bit jumped in front of his stick, and I took the chance.”
