With second-year forward Kaapo Kakko unavailable after being placed on the Rangers’ COVID-19 list, coach David Quinn shuffled his forward lines and put his best offensive player, Artemi Panarin, together with the struggling Mika Zibanejad for Saturday’s matinee against the Washington Capitals.
It worked, kind of. Zibanejad finally ended an 12-game goalless drought when he scored a short-handed goal into an empty net with 2:12 remaining to seal a 4-1 victory for the Rangers. And the Rangers’ offense looked as good as it has in weeks, pumping in two goals in the second period and protecting a lead in the third period to hold on for their second straight victory.
Panarin had two assists in the game, on Chris Kreider’s power-play goal that opened the scoring at 14:57 of the first period and on Alexis Lafreniere’s second NHL goal, that made it 2-0 at 17:44 of the second. Ryan Strome had a goal and an assist — his goal giving the Rangers a 3-0 lead at 18:43 of the second, before Dmitry Orlov finally got the Capitals on the scoreboard with 38.2 seconds left in the second.
Rookie defenseman K’Andre Miller returned to the lineup after missing two games with an upper-body injury and played his usual strong game, and goaltender Igor Shesterkin made 27 saves to earn the victory and end a personal three-game losing streak. It was his second win this season against the Capitals.
The game was originally scheduled to be a night game, but was moved up to a 12:30 p.m. start as part of a slew of changes made by the league to accommodate the return to action of the New Jersey Devils, who had been shut down for 16 days after having a number of players out due to COVID-19 protocols. Another schedule change is that the game between the Rangers and Capitals that was supposed to be played Sunday night has been moved to Saturday, March 20. The Capitals will play the Devils on Sunday instead.
The changes mean the Rangers (6-7-3) are off the next three days and don’t play again until Wednesday, when they visit the Flyers in Philadelphia.
