WINNIPEG, Manitoba – The longest remaining road trip for the Rangers this season got off to a rousing start Sunday when the Blueshirts wore down the struggling Winnipeg Jets, beating them 4-1 in Canada Life Centre, to kick off a four-game trip that continues Tuesday in Minnesota.
Chris Kreider continued the spectacular season he’s having by potting two goals as the Rangers won their third straight game and improved to 36-15-5 and pulled into a tie for second place in the Metropolitan Division with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Both teams have 77 points, but the Rangers have one game in hand on the Penguins, and have two more victories than Pittsburgh.
Kreider’s two goals gave him 38, which pulled him into a tie with Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl for second-place in the league, one behind league-leader Auston Matthews of Toronto. His first came on the power play, in the first period, and the second came at 6:21 of the third period on a pretty play in which the speedy Kreider collected a pass banked off the left boards by Mika Zibanejad, then cut across the slot against Winnipeg goalie Connor Hellebuyck, and flipped a backhander into the net.
That made the score 3-1, and Zibanejad made it 4-1 with his 22nd of the second to cap the scoring.
Though they pulled away from the Jets in the third period, the Rangers were once again kept in the game by their goaltender, Igor Shesterkin, the odds-on favorite to win the Vezina Trophy. Shesterkin, who is making a strong case to be the Hart Trophy winner, as Most Valuable Player. Shesterkin (28-6-3) made 44 saves as the Rangers were outshot 45-22.
Gallant pulled a surprise when he scratched forwards Julien Gauthier and Morgan Barron opted to dress a lineup featuring 11 forwards and seven defensemen, inserting defenseman Libor Hajek into the lineup for the first time since Feb. 1, the last game before the NHL All-Star break. Hajek had been scratched for eight consecutive games.
Why Gallant would go with the unorthodox lineup was a question to be posed after the game. Was he upset with Barron and Gauthier, and teaching them a lesson? Was he giving Hajek ice time to showcase him for a potential trade? Or was one of his top six defensemen nursing some sort of injury that the coach feared might end up leading to him being unable to finish the game?
In any case, Gallant and his bench staff made it work in the first period. It helped that Barclay Goodrow beat his defender to the back post to tap in a feed from ex-Jet Jacob Trouba for his 12th goal of the season and a 1-0 Rangers lead at 2:01. Kreider’s NHL-leading 19th power play goal made it 2-0 at 17:28.
In the meantime, goalie Igor Shesterkin was his usual brilliant self, answering every question posed to him, as the Jets outshot the Rangers, 16-9.
The Rangers, though, kept taking penalties, and Winnipeg got five power plays in the first two periods. They eventually cashed in on the fourth opportunity, when Nikolai Ehlers beat Shesterkin through a screen with a wrist shot from the upper part of the right circle, to pull the Jets within 2-1 at 13:34 of the second period. Shesterkin never had a chance to see the shot, with the 6-5, 210-pound Adam Lowry standing right in front of him.
Ex-Ranger Neal Pionk got the secondary assist on the play. Pionk was traded by the Rangers to the Jets in the summer of 2019, along with the return of Winnipeg’s own first round pick that year, in exchange for Trouba.
