Derek Stepan power
Gerry Broome/APRyan McDonagh scores the first of four third period goals to lift the Rangers past the Hurricanes.
RANGERS 4, HURRICANES 2
RALEIGH - Maybe the Rangers can't score a five-on-five goal, but maybe that's not such worrisome problem if they win, like in Friday night's 4-2 comeback victory over the Carolina Hurricanes at PNC Arena.
Martin St. Louis' first point as a Ranger - in his second game since being acquired on Wednesday in a trade for captain Ryan Callahan - was the primary assist across the crease to set up Derek Stepan's game-winning goal 17:14 into the third period on a five-on-three advantage that made it 3-2.
The Blueshirts (34-26-4, 72 points) scored all four of their goals in the third period to crawl back from a 1-0 deficit, beginning with Ryan McDonagh scoring for a career-high third straight game 7:25 into the period, shorthanded, to tie it 1-1.
Then, after Jeff Skinner ripped a penalty shot past Henrik Lundqvist to put the Rangers back down, 2-1, Rick Nash tallied 13:24 in on the four-on-four for the tie, before Stepan finished and Carl Hagelin added a late empty-netter. Mats Zuccarello, back from injury and playing in his first game since the Olympic break, assisted on Hagelin's tally and had a strong evening.
The Hurricanes gifted the regulation win to New York once it was tied with two delay of game penalties for flipping the puck directly out of play from their own defensive zone. However, the Blueshirts earned it, withstanding a terrific first two periods from Hurricanes goalie Anton Khudobin.
The Rangers will be back to visit the Hurricanes (27-27-9, 63 points) on Tuesday for the second time in five times, after returning to New York to host the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday afternoon.
Alain Vigneault said pregame in the context of integrating new players that he thought it might be too late to experiment, but on Friday night he tried almost every permutation he could think of to ignite his lineup.
He gave both Zuccarello and Chris Kreider turns on the left wing of Brad Richards and St. Louis, sending Hagelin onto Derek Stepan's line with Rick Nash. The coach juggled his defensive pairs. Sometimes it resulted in better scoring chances, but Kreider actually fell steeply out of the rotation for the most part,
Early in the third period, Zuccarello had a glorious rebound chance of a Benoit Pouliot shot on Khudobin that somehow hit the post and stayed out. That line was the Rangers' most effective, though, reunited as the trio that was New York's hottest line before the Olympics.
The Blueshirts still entered the third period down, 1-0. They killed three Hurricanes power plays in the second frame, including 43 seconds of a five-on-three on which defenseman Anton Stralman almost severely injured his left ankle blocking an Alex Semin wrist shot.
Stralman stayed in the game, though, as Dan Girardi had after a huge first-period crunch from Canes winger Jiri Tlusty, and Richards had after a slash to the left wrist from Canes captain Eric Staal.
Carl Hagelin had the best Rangers scoring chance of the first two periods on a terrific feed from St. Louis, but Khudobin stopped Hagelin's initial wrist shot and made a jaw-dropping left pad save on the rebound.
The Rangers held the Hurricanes to no shots on goal for almost 16 consecutive minutes in the first period, outshooting Carolina 15-6 and going on the game's first two power plays, but trailed, 1-0, after 20 minutes. The second of Marc Staal's two brothers on the Hurricanes roster, center Jordan Staal, snuck behind Ryan McDonagh after a neutral zone pinch, gathered an entry from Alex Semin and tucked a wicked wrist shot into the top near corner 17:49 into the first.
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