NY Rangers Keep up Domination Over Lightning in Win

The New York Rangers came into Tuesday night at home to remain perfect at home and get a big win against the Tampa Bay Lightning, with the Dylan Garand era as a starter continuing. 

In the first period, it didn’t take long for the Rangers to strike. On a good hustle play by Tye Kartye, it set up Alexis Lafreniere for his sixth goal of the season early. This goal gave Lafreniere a new career-high in four consecutive games with a goal. 

However, this duo wouldn’t be done just yet. Later on in the period, a backhand flip pass to Kartye set up Lafreniere for a breakaway goal. While the goal scoring was good for the Rangers to jump out to a lead, Matt Rempe was back in the lineup, and it didn’t take him long to drop the gloves. 

Tampa Bay would get one back just before the end of the period with a nice shot by Zemgus Girgensons that beat Garand. 

In the second period, there was a good amount of back and forth with not too much going on in terms of scoring. However, on a shot from the blueline by Sean Durzi, Will Cuylle was able to redirect it in for his third goal of the season. 

What was impressive for the Rangers was that Garand was able to make some good saves and keep a talented Lightning team out of the net. 

To start the third period, Durzi took a quick penalty less than 30 seconds in and immediately put the team on their heels in a  far from ideal situation with a two-goal lead to start the third. Fortunately, some good play by the penalty kill unit was able to create a chance offensively, and Noah Laba was slashed while making an attempt to score. 

Ultimately, nothing came of either power play for either team, and the score remained 3-1 despite both teams being on the man-advantage to start the third. 

New York kept their incredible defensive effort up despite a penalty against Kartye. Already with the man advantage, the Lightning decided to also pull their goalie for a 6-on-4 situation.

Garand made a few nice plays, keeping Tampa Bay out of the net. And then, for the finishing touch, Mika Zibanejad won the puck in the neutral zone and scored on the empty net to give the Blueshirts a 4-1 lead, which ended up being the final score.

The new No. 1 goalie for the Rangers saved 25 shots, looking stellar once again in relief of the injured Igor Shesterkin.

Next up for the Rangers will be a trip across the river to face the New Jersey Devils on Thursday.