Rangers rally to beat Blue Jackets on Will Cuylle's pair of goals in third period
Mika Zibanejad of the Rangers is congratulated by his teammates after scoring a goal during the second period of the game against the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena on Saturday in Columbus, Ohio. Credit: NHLI via Getty Images/Kirk Irwin
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Where there’s a Will, there’s a way.
Will Cuylle scored twice in the third period as the Rangers picked up a much-needed 4-3 victory over the Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena on Saturday night in the final game before the NHL 4 Nations Face-Off break.
With the Rangers down 3-2, Cuylle tied it 1:57 into the third period and put the Rangers ahead with 1:39 left to go in regulation. Both goals were assisted by Vincent Trocheck.
The Rangers outshot the Blue Jackets 17-4 in the third.
“We knew we had to at least get one goal and try to get to overtime,” Cuylle said. “We were just trying to get lots of pucks to the net. I felt like we kinda outplayed them for most of the period.”
The win moved the Rangers (27-24-4, 58 points) within three points of the Red Wings for the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.
“I thought the guys responded really well,” coach Peter Laviolette said. “Won a big game. We needed the points. Kept them from getting points, so that’s exactly what we needed.”
The Rangers knew two things going into the game:
Jonathan Quick would start in goal after Igor Shesterkin suffered an upper-body injury on Friday (fortunaely for the Blueshirts, Shesterkin’s one to two weeks of healing time will coincide with the two-week break for the 4 Nations Face-Off).
And the Rangers needed to erase the disappointment from Friday night’s home loss to the Penguins.
“We need a better start tonight,” Laviolette said before the game.
Boom! Arthur Kaliyev scored 1:56 into the game on a wraparound.
After Kaliyev’s quick strike, Columbus tied it at 14:31 of the first on a goal by Kent Johnson and took the lead 58 seconds later when Justin Danforth beat Quick (22 saves) on a deflection.
Laviolette shook things up, moving Jimmy Vesey to the first line and placing Mika Zibanejad back at center on the third line. Zibanejad picked up an assist on Kaliyev’s opening goal and tied the score at 2 at 6:38 of the second period off a feed from Adam Fox. It was Fox’s 40th assist of the season.
Vesey last month told the New York Post “it feels like I have no role or purpose on this team” after he was a healthy scratch for eight games.
James van Riemsdyk gave Columbus a 3-2 lead with 2:43 left in the second on a sweet kiss off the inside of the post to Quick’s right. The Rangers trailed going into the third for the seventh straight game.
Dylan Garand was called up from AHL Hartford to back up Quick for the Rangers, who will return to action on Feb. 22 at Buffalo.
Shesterkin’s injury may have occurred during the first period of Friday’s 3-2 loss to Pittsburgh. He played the entire game.
Shesterkin, who was on injured reserve earlier this season with an upper-body injury, spoke with trainers during the first period after a scramble in front of his net.
“You don’t like to see that,” Laviolette said of the injury. “You don’t want to see any of our players go down with injury. But there is a little bit of time coming up here . . . that’s useful. There’s no games being played. So that’s a useful thing.”
Friday’s loss at the Garden was a devastating one for the Rangers. The Penguins were without the injured Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
After Friday’s game, Fox, Chris Kreider, J.T. Miller and Trocheck all walked over from the Rangers’ dressing room to meet with Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan outside the visitors’ locker room.
Sullivan is the coach of the USA team that will be taking part in the 4 Nations Face-Off in Montreal and Boston over the next two weeks, and the four players are all part of the USA squad. They needed to go over some logistics for the tournament, for which the NHL is shutting down for the next two weeks while teams from the USA, Canada, Sweden and Finland compete in the first “best-on-best’’ international hockey tournament since the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.
The Rangers have 27 games left, which may be just enough to make up the ground they need to get into the playoffs. Eight of their first nine games coming out of the break will be against Eastern Conference opponents. Six of those are against teams they are competing against for a wild-card spot.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
