Rangers secure bounce-back win, slip past Ducks at MSG

After the Rangers lost to the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers on Thursday, Saturday night’s game against the lowly Anaheim Ducks should have been a get-right game. It should have been easy.

But it was not.

Will Cuylle’s goal with 8:06 remaining extended the Rangers’ one-goal lead and turned out to be the insurance they needed when Olen Zellweger scored late in the period for Anaheim. The Rangers held on for a 2-1 victory before a nervous crowd at the Garden.

“They’re a good team. They create a lot,’’ Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said of the 3-3-1 Ducks. “I thought we defended pretty well. Quickie [Jonathan Quick] made some big saves when he needed to. He made some big saves in the game.

“It was good to get through it [and] get a win coming off the game before.’’

Stay-at-home defenseman Ryan Lindgren, playing his third game after missing the first five following surgery to repair a jaw injury, scored his first goal of the season at 4:13 of the third period to make it 1-0.

Up until then, it was a goalie duel between Quick (32 saves) and Anaheim’s Luka Dostal (30 saves).

Then Cuylle scored twice, but one didn’t count. His first goal, a backhander on his own rebound at 8:42 of the period, was overturned on video review after a challenge by Anaheim.

He scored what ended up being the game-winner little more than three minutes later. That one, too, underwent a video review, but this time it stood up.

After having had the first one overturned, plus losing another one earlier in the season that was overturned because of offside, Cuylle acknowledged being a little nervous that his second apparent goal might not count, either.

“On the actual play, it just hit my skate,’’ he said. “I wasn’t trying to kick it. And then I saw on the replay, and it looked a little suspect. But that’s just kind of your reaction when the puck is coming to your skate. So I saw the replay, and I was like, ‘Oh, boy, I hope this one counts.’  ’’

Lindgren, who had been aggressively shooting and crashing the slot all game, drove the middle and Artemi Panarin found him with a pass from behind the goal line. Lindgren snapped it past Dostal to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead.

The assist extended Panarin’s point-scoring streak to eight games. He has scored at least one point in each game this season.

“It’s something we talk about with [Lindgren], just trying to bring that puck to the net,’’ Laviolette said. “It’s a great play from behind the net from [Panarin]. Not sure if it was for Laf [Alexis Lafreniere] or for Ryan, but it ended up on Ryan’s stick and he buried it. So that was nice.’’

Notes & quotes: Panarin has six goals and nine assists. His 15 points are tied for the most in the NHL .  .  . Quick earned his second win of the season and the 395th of his career. He is 20-6-2 with the Rangers .  .  . Defenseman Adam Fox took 26 shifts and played a game-high 25:24.

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.