To Hell And Back: Shesterkin, Vesey, And Panarin Lift Rangers Over Devils
Newark, NJ: The New York Rangers came back to defeat the New Jersey Devils 5-3 at the Prudential Center on Saturday night.
Igor Shesterkin played in his first game since November 2nd and Jack Hughes returned following an injury on November 3rd.
Adam Fox, Filip Chytil, Timo Meier, and Nico Hischier did not play in the contest.
1st Period: The New York Rangers opened the scoring on their first powerplay opportunity. Artemi Panarin ripped home a wrister on Vitek Vanecek at the 8:37 mark to take the 1-0 lead on a feed from Vincent Trocheck and Erik Gustafsson.
Jack Hughes scored a goal that was initially waved off. The puck crossed the line and it was quickly determined that although the official lost sight of the puck, it trickled by Igor Shesterkin.
Jacob Trouba punished Tomas Nosek for going hard to the net which set the tone for an intense match.
Former New Jersey Devil Jimmy Vesey knotted the game up at 14:11 with a net front goal. Then, Ondrej Palat scored his first of the season to knot the game up with under a minute to go in the period.
2nd Period: Back-and-forth hockey opened the middle frame. Jacob Trouba punished Michael McLeod twice in one shift. He responded by hitting Ryan Lindgren shoulder to head at the 11:00 mark which was called for a 5-minute penalty. Following a review, it was reduced to no penalty at all.
Alexander Holtz took a hit from Trocheck and left the ice, there was no penalty on that play either.
The Rangers failed to convert on the powerplay after Panarin was tripped up with 2:05 remaining in the period.
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Hughes registered 7 shots in two periods and had a plethora of dazzling chances, but Shesterkin shut down 6 of them.
3rd Period: Erik Haula scored his sixth of the season 1:16 into the third period after Hughes lost control of the puck and it slid to the far post.
Shesterkin came up with another timely save when Jesper Bratt pickpocketed Alexis Lafreniere and skated in on a breakaway.
At the faceoff dot, Trocheck tied up Haula and Panarin found the sitting puck, scoring his second of the game 11:04 into the third.
With just 2:49 remaining in the game, Vesey collected a give-and-go, spun around, and potted a smooth backhand goal to take a 4-3 lead.
A minute later, Blake Wheeler disrupted a blue line pass and hurled the puck to an empty cage to bury the Devils.
With the 5-3 victory the Rangers climb to a 12-2-1 record. They are 10-0-1 in their last 11 games.
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