DALLAS — Once again, the Rangers needed to show some resilience and they did.
Coming off an ugly loss Thursday in St. Louis that their coach, Gerard Gallant, had said should have left them "embarrassed,’’ the Rangers needed to come out with a better effort Saturday night against the Dallas Stars in the final game of their four-game road trip.
And despite giving up two early goals, they did just that, roaring back to score four straight goals before the first period was over. The Rangers gave up that lead and went on to a 7-4 victory at American Airlines Center that allowed them to finish the trip 2-2.
The victory improved the Rangers’ record to 37-17-5, good for 79 points, which moved them back into a tie for second place in the Metropolitan Division with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Rangers got goals from big guns Mika Zibanejad, Adam Fox and Artemi Panarin, but they got a couple from some unexpected places, too, in grinding forward Greg McKegg and defensive defenseman Patrik Nemeth. Forward Barclay Goodrow chipped in a valuable insurance goal at 14:07 of the third period to make it 6-4 after Joe Pavelski had scored earlier in the period to pull Dallas within a goal. Ryan Strome added an empty-netter with 1:37 left to seal it.
Igor Shesterkin, who got off to a shaky start, rebounded to finish with 29 saves.
Gallant had been upset at the way the Rangers had failed to protect the slot area against St. Louis, but he also had been bothered by the way the team started so slowly against both St. Louis and Minnesota.
"That's something that we were having a little trouble with earlier in the year,’’ forward Chris Kreider said of the slow starts. "And coming back from the All-star break, (it was) something that we thought we had gotten better at. But yeah, the last couple of games, obviously the starts haven't been good.’’
They fell behind 2-0 in this one before the game was five minutes old. And this time, it wasn’t necessarily because the team was lackadaisical to start. Esa Lindell scored 49 seconds into the game, on a backhand shot from a terrible angle that Shesterkin absolutely should have stopped. And Tyler Seguin doubled the lead when he tipped in a shot by Joel Kiviranta at 4:53.
But the Rangers got on the board at 9:45 when McKegg — returning to the lineup after missing the last four games — tipped in a K’Andre Miller shot for his second goal of the season. That was the first of four straight goals the Rangers scored before the period was over. Zibanejad tied the score with a power-play goal at 12:59, just seven seconds after Roope Hintz went to the penalty box for whacking Jonny Brodzinski in the groin with the shaft of his stick, a penalty that went into the books officially as hooking.
Fox then put the Rangers in front when he drove the net and tipped in a shot by Jacob Trouba at 14:14 — his first goal in 16 games — and Panarin scored at 14:50 to make it 4-2.
Dallas’ Jason Robertson ended the Rangers’ scoring run when he scored on a power play at 7:11 of the second period, to cut it to 4-3. But Nemeth gave the Rangers a 5-3 lead when he drove behind then Stars’ net, then reversed and came out behind the left wing post and jammed in a backhand wraparound at 18:20 of the second.
Dallas goalie Jake Oettinger appeared to stop Nemeth’s shot, but Nemeth jabbed at the puck a second time, and Rangers forward Dryden Hunt insisted to the referees that the puck had crossed the goal line. Upon video review, the officials ruled it had, and the goal was good.
