In a high scoring affair, the New York Rangers came away with a 7-3 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday night.
Going into this matchup, the Rangers were coming off their first home win of the season with Vincent Trocheck returning to the lineup after a 14-game absence with an upper-body injury, and Gabe Perreault making his season debut, so there was a lot of momentum to build off of.
It was an eventful first period, as a collective seven goals were scored.
The Rangers started hot with a quick power-play goal from Will Cuylle, followed up by a J.T. Miller goal off a two-on-one chance with Mika Zibanejad.
Cuylle was recently given an opportunity to play on the first power-play unit and has thrived in that position, where he’s been playing a netfront role.
“It's good. Happy to contribute. I mean, I'm pretty comfortable in front of the net,” Cuylle said. “I like that spot. It's been nice to get a few in the last couple games and help out.”
The Lightning hung around in the hectic first period, and despite both Alexis Lafrenière and Will Borgen finding the back of the net, the Rangers only found themselves up 4-3 after 20 minutes of play due to faulty defensive play.
It wasn’t pretty in the second period with the Rangers being heavily outshot 12-5, but Igor Shesterkin settled into the game, making some big saves.
Vincent Trocheck took advantage of an out-of-positioned Andrei Vasilevskiy in the two minutes of the period, scoring his first goal of the season to put the Rangers up 5-3, which gave the Blueshirts all the momentum they needed to carry away with a road victory.
“It obviously gives us a boost of confidence. The irony of it is I feel like the games where we didn't score, the effort and execution on both sides of the puck was really high,” Mike Sullivan said. “I thought, tonight, I don't think we were at our best. We were opportunistic.
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“We had some pretty good looks and we scored on them. You could say the same about the last game. So I don't think they were the cleanest games from execution standpoint on either side of the puck.”
The Rangers offensive struggles to start the season haunted the team, but over these past two games, they have come alive in a big way, scoring a total of 13 goals.
Artemi Panarin, who was once on a six game pointless streak not so long ago, has completely flipped the switch. The 34-year-old forward has recorded three goals, six assists, and nine points over his last four games.
On Wednesday night, Panarin had four assists and was all over the ice making plays, generating offense, and facilitating for his teammates.
“I sleep deep tonight,” Panarin said. “Good dreams.”
The Rangers’ offensive swagger is back, and for the first time in a while, things are finally looking up for the Blueshirts, a team that had little to no hope to start the season, but is now brimming with confidence.
The Rangers will be back in action on Saturday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets.