The Los Angeles Kings had not lost a road game in regulation all season, but Jonathan Quick and the New York Rangers gave them an unfamiliar feeling in a 4-1 win.
NEW YORK, NY -- It was clear how much this game meant to Jonathan Quick and the New York Rangers. This was Quick's first time playing against the team he had won two Stanley Cups with and an organization that he's called home for over a decade.
LINEUP:
Kreider-Zibanejad-Wheeler
Panarin-Trocheck-Lafreniere
Cuylle-Bonino-Brodzinski
Vesey-Goodrow-Pitlick
Lindgren-Fox
Miller-Trouba
Gustafsson-Schneider
Quick
1ST PERIOD:
There wasn't much to report in the opening frame of tonight's contest. The Los Angeles Kings did such a strong job at defending, making life difficult on the Rangers forwards. Most of New York's offensive zone time was spent on the perimeter.
Trevor Moore took a penalty with 22 seconds remaining in the period, giving the Rangers their first look at the power play, but there wasn't enough time to get anything set up.
The teams would go into the first intermission in a scoreless tie.
2ND PERIOD:
This game did not have much going on. Both team's were playing very sound defensively, or some may say that they were just playing flat out poorly on the offensive side of the puck.
The Kings had their best scoring chance seven minutes into the period off of a 3-on-2 rush, but Jacob Trouba made an incredible defensive play, arguably the play that changed the entire course of the game.
Shortly after, the Rangers would get another power play opportunity.
This time, they would make the Kings pay.
Artemi Panarin, Vincent Trocheck and Mika Zibanejad combined for a gorgeous goal on the man-advantage.
The game started to open up a bit as the second period wound down.
Quick kept his team up 1-0 after making an incredible save on Carl Grundstrom.
The Rangers first unit got plenty of opportunities on their third attempt of the game, but Pheonix Copley was there to shut the door on every chance.
However, the Rangers would get a huge 2nd goal of the game late in the period. Nick Bonino made an outstanding play to keep the puck in the offensive zone and quickly found Jimmy Vesey streaking towards the net. Vesey had a slick finish in tight on Copley, giving the Rangers a 2-0 lead.
I asked Peter Laviolette what he thought of Bonino's vertical jump on this assist. He didn't necessarily understand what I was asking at first, but once it clicked he laughed and said "High, really high. Record setting."
Vesey has been beyond clutch for the Rangers this year and continues to score big goals when the team needs them most.
Heading into the final 20 minutes, the Rangers lead Los Angeles 2-0.
3RD PERIOD:
The third period had a whole lot of chaos right from the start.
There were penalties handed out left and right for both sides.
After all of this chaos ensued, the Kings were able to cut the Rangers lead to 2-1 after Phillip Danault tallied on the power play.
The Kings had started to generate more and more offensively, but Quick had an answer for them every time. That said, it seemed like after every whistle, there were some extra curricular's.
Since Zibanejad was in the penalty box serving a 10-minute misconduct, Jonny Brodzinski got a look on the Rangers first power play unit.
Brodzinski made the most of it, extending the Rangers lead to 3-1.
After the game Brodzinski told me “I went up to him [Mika] after the game and gave him a hug and told him I owed him a steak dinner for taking a 10-minute misconduct.”
We had a good laugh about that.
Brodzinski had played a few games on the first line with Zibanejad and Chris Kreider, but prior to tonight's game had been put on the third line with Bonino and Will Cuylle.
Sometimes it can affect a player mentally when they're moved down the lineup. Then, on top of that, in the same game to get a look on the first power play unit, talk about an emotional roller coaster.
Brodzinski after the game spoke about the emotions of that. He added "Like I've been saying, it's been my last six years pro. There's adversity all the time and when you get your chance, you just got to take it."
To me, this has been the story of the Rangers season. When they win big games like this, it's because there is somebody new stepping up every single time.
To add the exclamation point on this game, Brodzinski would chip in again. This time getting the secondary assist on a Cuylle goal which gave the Rangers a massive 4-1 lead.
The Rangers got three big goals from depth players like Vesey, Brodzinski and Cuylle. The depth scoring is what this team has lacked for what feels like so many years. It's so encouraging to see them beat a strong team like the Kings because of that.
I asked Laviolette about how great it is to see the depth scoring from his team. Laviolette was quick to respond before I could even finish, saying "how awesome is that".
Laviolette continued by adding "Obviously, there's a few people out of the lineup and you need other people to step up. You can't always look at the same guy. We need everybody to chip in and produce. They're a top team in the league. Top team in the West and I thought our guys did a heck of a job. We needed everybody and everybody showed."
As much as the overall depth could be the story, Quick was unbelievable in goal all night.
The Rangers finished the job and defeated a very strong hockey team by the score of 4-1.
Not only was this win big for the team, but it was especially big for Quick, who is now 8-0-1 this season.
After the game, Quick told the media "I mean, obviously it's special right. It's a game that, this summer when the schedule comes out you know when we're playing them. The effort from the guys in front of me and how to stand down the neutral zone, blocking shots and the way we played defensively it was tremendous. Obviously at the end of the day, it's two points, we got a game in a couple of days here so we're going to move onto that and focus on that."
The Rangers had lost two games in a row for the first time this season, this was a huge bounce back win for this group to get back in the right direction.