Rangers Display One Of Their Best Performances With Major Playoff Stakes On The Line

The New York Rangers are back in the playoffs after defeating the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-0 on Saturday night. 

Going into this matchup, the Rangers and Blue Jackets were tied with 70 points for the second wild-card spot, so the magnitude of this game was evident.

“It's a massive game,” Vincent Trocheck said on Saturday morning. “We all know the implications.”

Less than two minutes into the contest, Mika Zibanejad hustled to force a turnover in the offensive zone, leading to a goal from Alexis Lafrenière.

Zibanejad has really found his game over the past few weeks while Lafrenière is looking like a different and more confident player since being placed on a line with Zibanejad and J.T. Miller. 

“He’s played really, really well for us,” Peter Laviolette said of Zibanejad. “It’s the way he’s defending, the way he’s competing, battling, he’s creating. It’s been really good. I think Laf (Lafrenière) has done a really good job on that line as well.”

It was the Rangers’ defensive game that really carried them to this victory. 

In their last meeting against the Blue Jackets, New York gave up seven goals and displayed one of their worst defensive performances of the season.

On Saturday night, it was the complete opposite. The Blueshirts allowed very minimal high-quality scoring chances, helping Igor Shesterkin secure his fifth shutout of the season. 

It almost felt like a playoff type of game the way the Rangers were playing defensively. You couldn’t ask for a more hard-fought performance from a team and Laviolette couldn’t be any more impressed. 

“I thought we got better almost every minute of the game,” Laviolette said. “By the end of the first, I thought we were playing pretty well and in the second and third, I thought we were outstanding. That’s three games in a row where I thought we defended well, defended hard, gives us a chance to be successful.”

The Rangers may be in a playoff position right now, but there are 15 games still remaining this season, so the team is not popping champagne bottles just yet. 

“We got a lot of work to do,” Laviolette said. “They're still teams that are right there. This thing juggles. None of that matters. We’re in charge of what we do. We’re in complete charge of winning hockey games and don’t have to look anywhere else. 

“It’s great when other teams don’t win on any given night, but we just have to be responsible for ourselves right now. There's still a ton of work, though, and so that's the focus that we try to talk about.”

The Rangers will be back in action on Sunday night against the Edmonton Oilers.