NEW YORK — Having clinched a playoff spot on Monday night, when the Florida Panthers and Buffalo Sabres lost, the Rangers’ focus for the remainder of the regular season is just get their work in, try and fine-tune their game and stay healthy.
But there is still some jockeying for position going on in the top of the Metropolitan Division in these final weeks, and though the Rangers had at one time looked pretty well locked into third place, the possibility of upward mobility seems to be there.
Tuesday’s 6-2 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets at Madison Square Garden was the Rangers’ ninth in the last 11 games (9-1-1) and pulled the 44-20-10 Blueshirts within two points of the second-place Devils in the Metro, which sets up a delicious battle between the Hudson River rivals Thursday night in Newark.
The Rangers, with 98 points, would tie the Devils (100) for second in the division with a regulation time win Thursday, and that would make for a fun battle over the final two weeks of the season to determine home ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs in a series between those two teams.
To get into that position, the Rangers needed to take care of business Tuesday against the Blue Jackets, who entered the game tied with San Jose for the fewest points in the league (53) and at the forefront of the race for the No. 1 pick overall and the right to draft sensational junior center Connor Bedard.
A fast start, and a strictly-business third period in which they protected a two-goal lead while keeping the pressure on Columbus goalie Michael Hutchinson, did the job for the Rangers, who got goals from Filip Chytil, Vladimir Tarasenko, Patrick Kane, Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad and Vincent Trocheck. Goaltender Igor Shesterkin turned in another fine performance, making 28 saves to help the Rangers win their third straight.
Before the game, coach Gerard Gallant was asked how he intended to make certain his team was ready to play the lowly Blue Jackets the night after having clinched a playoff spot.
“I mean, we’ve got to make sure we're ready to play,’’ he said. “We're paid to come here and get ready to play and win hockey games. And that's what it's all about. There's nine games left. You don't take any games off no matter who you're playing.’’
And the Rangers were indeed ready to start the game, quickly jumping out to a 3-0 lead in the first eight minutes. First, it was Chytil digging out a rebound in front of a sprawled out and flailing Hutchinson and flipping it in at 5:23 for his 22nd goal of the season, and his second in two games and third in five.
Tarasenko then crashed the net and redirected a diagonal pass by Braden Schneider to make it 2-0 at 6:50, and Kane drove in from the left and lifted a puck over the shoulder of Hutchinson to make it 3-0 at 8:00.
It looked like a blowout at that point, but Chris Kreider was called for an interference penalty to give Columbus the game’s first power play and Kirill Marchenko beat Shesterkin though traffic to get the Blue Jackets on the board at 11:45 of the period.
Then, the Rangers got pinned in their own zone and Johnny Gaudreau got free in front of the net and chipped a short shot over Shesterkin’s shoulder to pull Columbus within 3-2 with 28.1 seconds left in the period.
But the second period was a much lower scoring affair, with Panarin’s power-play goal at 17:36 that made it 4-2 being the only score. Zibanejad added his 38th goal of the season at 14:27 of the third, and Trocheck scored into an empty net with 3:39 remaining.
