Rangers rally to beat Penguins on Adam Fox's tiebreaking goal in third period

PITTSBURGH — Clearly, Igor Shesterkin needed to be better on Sunday than he was on Saturday, when he was pulled in the first period in what might have been the Rangers’ worst game of the season.

And the goaltender indeed was better — much better — to help the Rangers steal this one.

Shesterkin made 36 saves, many of them brilliant, to keep them in a game in which they were dominated. His performance gave them the chance to figure things out just in time to snatch a huge 5-3 victory over the fading Penguins at PPG Paints Arena that drew the Rangers a little closer to the playoff spot they are chasing.

“No, it wasn’t good enough,’’ defenseman Will Borgen said after the Rangers were outshot 39-16, including 19-4 in the second period. “But Shesty definitely saved us, especially in the second period . . . So yeah, I mean, don’t ask how we got the win. Move on to the next one.’’

Adam Fox’s goal with 11:26 left was the difference after Jimmy Vesey’s goal tied it 3-3 at 4:21 of the third period. J.T. Miller’s second goal, into an empty net with seven seconds left, sealed it as the Rangers earned a split of their weekend trip to Buffalo and Pittsburgh and pulled to within two points of the last wild-card spot.

The Rangers (28-25-4, 60 points) had been blown out, 8-2, by a Sabres team that sits at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings. They desperately needed to bounce back against a desperate Penguins team that had lost to visiting Washington, 8-3, on Saturday.

“You can’t dwell on past results,’’ said Vesey, who was back in the lineup after being a healthy scratch on Saturday. “The league’s pretty unforgiving. You have a brutal game [Saturday] night, but you wake up and you’re playing a team that got pounded yesterday too, so they’re going to be hungry.

“And yeah, the playoff race is really tight with a lot of teams going for the wild-card spots. So it’s definitely about momentum and being able to weather the storm, so to speak, when things aren’t going well.’’

Shesterkin’s teammates had no doubt that he would rebound.

“You know he’s gonna bounce back,’’ defenseman Ryan Lindgren said. “He’s one of the best goalies in the league. He works so hard, he cares so much — you look at yesterday, too. You know those goals are on us. We’re leaving him out to dry. We did that tonight, too. In that second period, he obviously made some huge saves.’’

The Rangers played without Chris Kreider, who was a last-minute scratch with what the team said was an upper-body injury. Coach Peter Laviolette refused to elaborate on Kreider’s status, repeating only that his status is “day-to-day.’’

Shesterkin was brilliant in the first two periods, when the Rangers were outshot 31-9. He somehow held the Penguins off, and the Rangers led 2-1 entering the third thanks to goals by Will Cuylle, on the power play late in the first period, and Miller, on a two-on-one at 17:00 of the second.

But the Penguins tied it and then took the lead early in the third period on the first two goals of the season by defenseman Ryan Shea, at :57 and 3:31. But Vesey beat goaltender Joel Blomqvist high on the glove side with a shot from the wing and Fox took a return pass from Reilly Smith and wristed a shot from the slot past Blomqvist for what proved to be the winner.

Kreider, who scored a power-play goal in Saturday’s loss, took warmups before Sunday’s game, but shortly thereafter, the Rangers announced on social media that he would not play. Arthur Kaliyev, who originally was scheduled to be scratched — with Vesey dressing for the game — instead replaced Kreider.

After it was over, the Rangers spoke like a team that knew it had stolen two vital points in their playoff chase. But they all acknowledged they can’t play as poorly as they played this weekend if they are to stay in the race.

“We need to win games right now, first and foremost, which we did tonight,’’ Lindgren said. “But that’s not a recipe for winning games. We’ve got another big one on Tuesday [against the Islanders], a team we’re battling with in the standings right now. So yeah, we’ve got to play a heck of a lot better for sure.’’

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.