Igor Shesterkin sharp as Rangers end three-game skid with win over Stars

DALLAS — The vexing thing about Matt Rempe is that for all the positives he brings — physicality, energy, personality — there’s plenty of risk in his game, too.

The Rangers got to see all of that Friday night when Rempe, called up from Hartford in the wake of Kaapo Kakko’s being traded away Wednesday, landed a lot of big hits, drew three penalties against the Dallas Stars, and also committed a major elbowing penalty that gave the Stars a five-minute major power play late in the third period, as the Rangers tried to hold on to a one-goal lead.

But the Blueshirts’ penalty kill, heroic all game, came through in a massive way, killing the penalty — goalie Igor Shesterkin made a snazzy glove save on Logan Stankoven as the penalty was about to expire — and thanks in large part to that sequence, the Rangers ended up holding on to beat the Stars, 3-1, to close the road trip with a win that ended their three-game losing streak.

Reilly Smith and Vincent Trocheck, the primary forward duo on the penalty-kill unit, each scored goals, with Smith’s coming while the Rangers were shorthanded. Chris Kreider scored an empty-net goal with 2:06 remaining, and Shesterkin made 41 saves to earn his first win since Dec. 11 over Buffalo.

The Rangers almost literally could not have had a worse start to the game. On the first shift, two defensive zone turnovers led to a pad save by Shesterkin and another Dallas shot that was wide. Seconds later, on the next shift, Jamie Benn fired a shot way wide that caromed off the backboards and he got to the rebound first and jammed it past Shesterkin for what looked like a 1-0 Dallas lead at 1:15.

The Rangers challenged the play, alleging the Stars had been offside entering the zone, and the challenge was successful, so the goal came off the board.

But 31 seconds later, Roope Hintz scored one that counted to give Dallas the lead, when he won a rebound high in the slot walked down the middle and beat Shesterkin for his 14th goal of the season, at 1:46.

For the first half of the period the Rangers looked in danger of getting blown out, but then Mika Zibanejad got called for a slashing penalty, and that turned out to be the start of the Rangers’ turnaround.

One minute, 25 seconds into the penalty, Smith scored a shorthanded goal when a drop pass from Jason Robertson skipped over the stick of point man Thomas Harley and into the neutral zone. Smith pounced on the puck and drove up the left side and beat Stars goalie Jake Oettinger (27 saves) for his seventh goal of the season, at 10:44 of the period to tie it, 1-1.

Then, at 15:20, Trocheck gave the Rangers the lead when he won a faceoff in the offensive zone that led to Adam Fox getting a sharp angle shot on Oettinger. The goalie made the save, but Fox retrieved the puck behind the goal line, and flung a backhand pass across the slot to Trocheck at the top of the left wing circle. His shot through traffic to beat Oettinger for his ninth goal.

In the second period, Rempe, called up from Hartford late Wednesday, after Kakko had been traded to Seattle,  started to have an impact. Rempe landed some huge body checks, but also drew three penalties, the last of which came when he pounced on a loose puck just inside the blue line and had a breakaway that Oettinger saved.

“He's playing really well down there, so just being effective at what he's doing,’’ Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said when asked why the 6-9, 255-pound Rempe was recalled. “And, you know, for us, I think just a change sometimes is good as well. What we're doing needs to change. And so you try different pieces and different elements at different times, and see if that brings anything to the table.’’

But in the third, the downside of Rempe’s physicality turned up, when he crushed Miro Heiskanen into the glass, but got his left elbow up on Heiskanen’s head. Roope Hintz, who is decidedly not a fighter, got in Rempe’s face and there was a scrum in front of the benches. The referees called a major penalty for elbowing, giving Dallas a major, all-you-can-eat power play. Rempe was also automatically ejected. But he and Hintz got matching minors for roughing, and that meant Hintz was unavailable for the first two minutes of the power play.

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.