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BUFFALO — If the mark of a good team is the ability to win games when not at its best, then the Rangers have arrived.
For their 2-1 victory over the Sabres here on Friday that elevated the Rangers (18-5-3) into first place in the Metropolitan Division was hardly one to write home about, even as that’s exactly what The Post is doing.
The Rangers created all sorts of trouble for themselves over the final 40 minutes after a strong opening period, committing a slew of careless turnovers that allowed the Sabres not only to hang in there, but also to take over the game and nearly tie the score after paring the 2-0 lead to 2-1 with 5:23 to play.
Indeed, for a few fraught moments it seemed as if Buffalo had actually tied it when a shot by Victor Olofsson entered the net with 56.2 seconds remaining, but the tally was wiped out by a Rasmus Dahlin offside infraction on the entry into the zone a full 30 seconds earlier.
So the Rangers and Alexandar Georgiev, clearly the team’s best player from start to finish in a 35-save performance, took a collective deep breath and closed out their 12th victory in the last 14 games. It wasn’t a Picasso, but, then again, sometimes there is value in a finger painting.
“Ultimately, it’s the two points that matter, but we know if we want to keep getting these two points, I think it’s been the theme all season to play more complete games,” Mika Zibanejad said after snapping a 14-game goal-scoring drought. “Because I think that we’ve shown to ourselves, that when we play our game, how good we can be and how effective we can be.
“That’s our next step. That’s our next challenge. But at the end of the day I think it’s easier to go back and look at what we have to do better and what we have to do more of rather than losing and start panicking.”
Way too much of the final two periods was played in the New York end. Georgiev was not exactly under siege, but he faced a number of Grade-A chances from around the net. And he responded, just as he has every time out since replacing an ailing Igor Shesterkin 5:08 into the third period of the Dec. 10, 1-0 victory over the Sharks at the Garden.
Indeed, the goaltender who entered that game toting a 4.58 goals against average and .858 save percentage has recorded a 1.54 GAA and .949 save percentage in going 3-0 in 194:52. If this is the kind of work the Rangers can expect from Georgiev the rest of the way, that would allow the coaching staff to diminish the burden on Shesterkin, who had started 17 of the first 22 contests.
“It felt good to play. It felt good to win,” said Georgiev, who allowed that his confidence level is as high as it’s been all year. “When we were leading 2-0, [the Sabres] pushed back a little bit. It doesn’t matter. We got the job done.”
Again, it was a low-event, low-intensity environment, perhaps partly due to the small crowd of 9,703. There wasn’t a lot of physical play. But there were plenty of errors, even as the Rangers generated a handful of isolated good chances of their own after taking a 2-0 lead on Alexis Lafreniere’s sixth goal of the year at 9:47 of the second period. Honestly, there was a fair amount of aimless play. But the Rangers got the win. And Zibanejad, who had not scored since Nov. 5 at Edmonton, got his goal.
“We’ve been winning games and ultimately that’s what matters, the two points in the standings for the New York Rangers,” said No. 93, who picked a slice of the net in close from a sharp angle to beat Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen “Do I want to contribute with goals and points? Absolutely. But at the same time if we keep winning it’s easier to put aside.
“Is it frustrating? Of course it’s frustrating when the puck doesn’t go in, especially when the chances have been there but at the same time, trust the process. Again, team-first and if I can help with goals, great.”
That’s all well and good, but Zibanejad is a goal-scorer. But as the Swede said, that’s not all he can do on the ice.
“It’s hard [not to beat yourself up] but I feel like I go through these stretches every season,” he said. “It comes and goes, but I try not to focus on it too much because I know that’s going to take away from all the other things I have to do. I’m not just a pure goal-scorer, that’s not my only job.
“In terms of that, there’s a lot more I can bring to the table and when one thing’s not working I have to do the other things a little bit better. I try not to beat myself up but I would be lying if I said I don’t think about it.
“That’s just human nature, I guess.”
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