Gerard Gallant reached into his bag of tricks and, lo and behold, the head coach of the Rangers pulled out a checking line that he had created for this occasion and sicced the unit on the Capitals’ top line, which featured Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov.
Lining up against Ovechkin was Ryan Reaves, accompanied by Kevin Rooney in the middle and Barclay Goodrow on the left. And on one shift after another, the Rangers’ support guys took the measure of Washington’s gunners.
The fancy numbers do not tell the story. It does not matter that the Rooney line’s expected goals for percentage was 27.03. It does not matter that the line had a 33 percent shot share. In this case, analytics did not matter at all.
What mattered wasn’t even the goal that Goodrow scored off a two-on-one feed from Rooney midway through the third period on a play that originated with a defensive-zone draw against a loaded-up unit with Kuznetsov, Ovechkin and for that shift, Tom Wilson.
What mattered was the tenacious mindset the unit carried onto the ice. What mattered was the steadfast approach the Rangers brought to the Garden on Thursday night, as they created offense off staunch work in the defensive zone in a 4-1 victory that was every bit as decisive as the score.
This was the 200×85, 60-foot performance the Rangers have been waiting for. This was as impressive as it has been for the Rangers (33-15-5), from the imposing performance of the top unit, led by Mika Zibanejad, straight through Igor Shesterkin’s sparkling performance in net.
“It’s a really tough opponent we’re playing against, they can score goals and we just want to make sure we keep working on our defense,” said Zibanejad, who got the 1-0 goal at 12:57 of the first period off a neat drop pass from the improving Alexis Lafreniere to complete a rush from the other end of the ice. “When you break those pucks up especially against an offensive team like this, when you do well in your own zone, you’re going to be able to create chances.
“You try to take advantage of them, and I thought we did tonight.”
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The Blueshirts took advantage by scoring all four goals at five-on-five after getting one apiece in each of their last three games. They took advantage to move into second place in the Metropolitan Division, one point up on the Penguins, whom they will face in Pittsburgh on Saturday.
Gallant has matched power against power, top six against top six almost exclusively. But he deviated Thursday. Goodrow, Rooney and Reaves had played together for a 10-game stretch in November, but as a fourth line getting nominal fourth-line assignments during the stretch in which Lafreniere, Filip Chytil and Julien Gauthier comprised the third line.
But against the Capitals, the fourth line had Morgan Barron skating between Gauthier and Greg McKegg. The unit got only two shifts in the second period, but brought a physical, grinding element to the match. Barron was a late insert in place of Filip Chytil, who wasn’t feeling well. One wonders if Chytil has a place in the lineup if Gallant opts to keep the checking line intact. Surely Chytil is not suited for fourth-line duty.
“Big boys against big boys,” Gallant said when asked why he opted to match Rooney against Kuznetsov. “Sometimes it works and sometimes it backfires, but they really accepted that role and did a real good job with it.
“That’s what we need from them. When they are important players like that, and they’re big strong guys and compete, they played a perfect game for us.”
Wilson’s return to the scene of the crime was pretty uneventful. He was booed loudly on his first shift, booed a little less loudly the first time he touched the puck and was the same afterthought during the match that he had been leading into it. The Rangers played a stiff game and did well in the one-on-ones without losing their discipline.
Payback was on the scoreboard.
The Rangers are off on another run, 5-0-1 in their last six games, through which they have surrendered a sum of nine goals. Shesterkin, who stopped Ovechkin on a third-period breakaway after denying Garnet Hathaway’s dash in alone in the second, had a shutout until Ovechkin put one in from in front with just 1:02 remaining in the game.
The Rangers’ strong work on defense carried into their penalty kill, which, in another twist, marked Ovechkin closely without the puck while he stationed himself in his power-play left-circle office. Rooney shaded in his direction, Goodrow shaded in his direction. Chris Kreider shaded in his direction. The approach worked. Ovechkin was not a threat on the man-advantage.
Now, it’s on to Pittsburgh for another showdown against a Metro legacy team. It’s on to Pittsburgh with a checking line.