Sunday night at Madison Square Garden Derick Brassard scored twice and Ryan McDonagh tied a career-high by recording three points as the Rangers skated to a 4-1 victory over the Ottawa Senators in their final home game before a three-game trip to Western Canada next week.
McDonagh scored New York's first goal and then earned the primary assists on the pair scored by Brassard in a game the Rangers never trailed. Henrik Lundqvist was stout between the pipes for New York, stopping 23 of 24 shots.
The Rangers were awarded a pair of power plays in the first period and cashed in on both to grab an early 2-0 lead, but Ottawa cut that lead in half with the only goal of the second period, so New York carried a 2-1 lead into the third period.
McDonagh opened the scoring at the 8:40 mark of the first, with Ottawa's Mika Zibanejad sitting in the penalty box for interfering with Dan Boyle on a pick play. Keith Yandle made a deft drop pass to McDonagh inside the the blue line, and the Rangers captain ripped his fourth goal of the season through a Chris Kreider screen to give New York a much-welcomed 1-0 lead--what with the team coming off Thursday's dismal 2-1 home-ice loss to Colorado.
Five minutes later McDonagh helped double the Blueshirts' advantage, assisting on Brassard's power play goal at 13:47. McDonagh took a pass from Rick Nash and cranked a shot towards Ottawa's net, with Brassard deflecting the puck down off the ice and then up and over Ottawa goalie Craig Anderson's shoulder. The goal was Brassard's team-high third goal on the power play, and it put New York up 2-0.
It marked only the second time this season that the Rangers had scored more than one power play goal in a game. However those two times have both come within the past week as New York also netted a pair of power play goals last Monday against the Carolina Hurricanes.
The revived Rangers power play has now scored eight times in the past nine games.
Lundqvist had a fairly quiet opening period until he was forced into making three difficult saves while on his knees in the final minute of the period. That set the stage for a second period in which Ottawa outshot New York 14-9 and Lundqvist had to make a string of key stops--most notably a lightning-quick glove save while falling backwards on a quick blast off the stick of Senators' Dave Dziurznyski late in the period.
Ottawa did manage to get a puck past Lundqvist in the middle twenty as Marc Methot's slap shot tipped off the stick of Rangers defenseman Marc Staal and into the net at the 6:01 mark of the second.
The goal was a bit of pay back for Methot who had been crushed on a hard-hit near the Senators bench 13 minutes into the opening period by Tanner Glass, causing Ottawa's head coach Dave Cameron to receive an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for arguing the fact that Glass was not assessed a penalty on the play. Brassard scored on the ensuing New York power play.
Brassard was not done scoring on Sunday. He netted his second goal of the night in the third period to provide Lundqvist and the Rangers breathing room, upping New York's lead to 3-1.
Sprung on a long pass by McDonagh, Brassard got behind the Senators defense and unleashed a hard slap shot from the left circle which beat Anderson cleanly at 10:08 for his ninth goal of the season.
Though they scored only once in the third period, it was the Rangers best period of the game. New York outworked Ottawa--which had played, and won, an overtime contest at home on Saturday against the Islanders--and threw a defensive blanket over the skilled Senators, who managed only three shots in the final 20 minutes of play.
Jesper Fast put the victory on ice by scoring an empty net goal with 1:31 remaining in regulation, his fourth goal of the season.
It will be nine days until the Rangers play on home ice again--on December 15 when they host the Edmonton Oilers. In between they will skate in Vancouver this upcoming Wednesday, In Edmonton on Friday, and in Calgary one night later.
FINAL STATS:
NY RANGERS 4 OTTAWA SENATORS 1
Scoring Summary
1st Period
08:40 NYR PPG - Ryan McDonagh (4) Slapshot - ASST: Keith Yandle (13), Chris Kreider (8) 1 - 0 NYR
13:47 NYR PPG - Derick Brassard (8) Tip-in - ASST: Ryan McDonagh (8), Rick Nash (10) 2 - 0 NYR
2nd Period
06:01 OTT Marc Methot (2) Slapshot - ASST: Shane Prince (5), Dave Dziurzynski (1) 2 - 1 NYR
3rd Period
10:08 NYR Derick Brassard (9) Slapshot - ASST: Ryan McDonagh (9), Dan Girardi (7) 3 - 1 NYR
18:29 NYR EN - Jesper Fast (4) Snap shot - ASST: NONE 4 - 1 NYR
Penalty Summary
1st Period
07:16 OTT Mika Zibanejad Interference - 2 min against Dan Boyle
13:16 OTT Mike Hoffman Abusive language - bench - 2 min against Tanner Glass
2nd Period
02:03 NYR J.T. Miller Holding - 2 min against Bobby Ryan
14:36 NYR Chris Kreider Interference - 2 min against Jean-Gabriel Pageau
3rd Period
NONE
shots by period
Period OTT NYR
1st 8 10
2nd 13 9
3rd 3 12
Total 24 31
Team Stats
Category OTT NYR
Power Plays 0/2 2/2
Hits 30 32
Faceoff Wins 20 35
Giveaways 13 11
Takeaways 5 5
Blocked Shots 10 24
Penalty Minutes 4 4
NY RANGERS 3 STARS OF THE GAME
1. RYAN McDONAGH
2. DERICK BRASSARD
3. HENRIK LUNDQVIST
DEREK BRASSARD GET THE BROADWAY HAT FOR HIS 2 GOAL PERFORMANCE
NEXT GAME: WEDNESDAY 12/9 10:00 PM NEW YORK RANGERS @ VANCOUVER CANUCKS
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