NEW YORK — The all-out sprint to the finish line of the regular season is in its final days for the Rangers, and coach Gerard Gallant’s men are storming their way to the tape.
They beat the Winnipeg Jets, 3-0, Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, recording their third straight win (all shutouts) and sixth in their last seven games, and in so doing, pulled into a first-place tie in the Metropolitan Division with the idle Carolina Hurricanes. In the process, the Rangers’ victory eliminated Winnipeg from playoff contention in the Western Conference.
Goaltender Igor Shesterkin was brilliant for the Rangers, making 31 saves in posting his second consecutive shutout, and his sixth of the season. Ryan Strome’s power-play goal at 15:57 of the second period provided the winning margin, and Adam Fox added an insurance goal at 11:47 of the third period. Strome added his second goal, into an empty net, with 32.3 seconds remaining, to close the scoring.
Artemi Panarin (two assists) and ex-Jet Andrew Copp earned the assists on Fox’s goal. Copp, acquired from the Jets at the March 21 trade deadline, also assisted Strome’s empty-netter in his first game against his old team.
The victory was the 50th of the season for the Rangers (50-21-6), the fifth time they’ve reached that plateau. It is the first time they’ve done it since 2014-15, when they won 53 games and advanced to the Eastern Conference finals.
The Rangers have five games remaining in the regular season, the next one coming up Thursday on Long Island, when they travel to UBS Arena to face the Islanders for the final time this season. In their battle with the Hurricanes for first place in the Metro, they have one more game against them, next Tuesday at the Garden.
Copp, the biggest name among the three acquisitions the Rangers made at the deadline, knew, as soon as he was traded to the Rangers that he’d be facing his old team Tuesday. But knowing it nearly a month in advance didn’t make it any easier for him.
“I think you can kind of prepare for it all you want to, but I think once you get on the ice, and I see them on the other side, it's going to be a little weird,’’ Copp said after the Rangers’ practice on Monday.
Copp, acquired along with a sixth-round pick in 2023 in exchange for two conditional second round picks and prospect Morgan Barron, has been a key addition to the Rangers. He had five goals and eight assists in 13 games with the Blueshirts entering Tuesday, and along with fellow newcomer Frank Vatrano, had helped solidify Gallant’s top six forward group.
“I expected him to be a good, solid player,’’ Gallant said of Copp. “And he's playing with some pretty skilled guys there (in Panarin and Strome), so he's probably getting a few more points than I thought he would. But I like what he's bringing to our team. He's good for the PK, he's playing the second PP Unit, and, definitely, that line's been better.’’
In a relatively lackluster game through the first two periods, it was Shesterkin who kept the Rangers from falling behind the desperate Jets. Shesterkin stopped all 18 shots Winnipeg took — many of them in the Grade A category — and the goalpost stopped one, by Zach Sanford, at 8:44 of the second period, to keep it 0-0.
Then, Barron, playing his first game in the Garden since the trade, was penalized for a high stick on Filip Chytil at 14:19, and the Rangers capitalized on the power play, with Strome driving the net and redirecting a feed from Mika Zibanejad over the shoulder of Winnipeg goalie Eric Comrie for his 18th goal of the season.
Fox took a drop pass from Panarin at the top of the slot and whipped a wrist shot past a surprised Comrie (31 saves) for his 11th goal of the season. It was his first goal in 13 games, since March 22 in New Jersey.
