It wasn’t so much skill as positioning last night, but Ryan Callahan did get a touch with his leg on the Rich Nash shot from the boards to put the Rangers up 3-1. It was Callahan’s 113th career goal, and ties him once again with Marian Gaborik for the Rangers franchise. Both players are tied 42nd all time, five goals behind Mike Rogers and Grant Warwick for 40th all time.
Martin Biron made just his 5th appearance of the season, and picked up his second win. It was his 22nd as a Ranger, placing him 25th all time amongst Ranger netminders, and seven behind Eddie Mio. His stats this season are actually better than last year, 2.17 GAA vs 2.46 and 0.923 save percentage vs 0.904, but his two to one wins versus losses ratio is the same.
Brian Boyle scored his first goals of the season, and for whatever reason he likes playing against the Capitals. It was his seventh goal in fourteen games as a Ranger against Washington, and trails only Ryan Callahan (9) amongst the current team. He’s only scored 37 total goals since joining New York.
After two games this weekend, the Rangers power play dropped one spot from 22nd to 23rd in the league with a 15.8 conversion rate. The PK is holding steady at 12th, with a 83.3 record.
The four goals the Rangers scored yesterday was the first time this season they’ve reached that mark on the road. They did defeat the Bruins 4-3 back on February 12th, but that was in a shootout.
The Rangers are last in the league with goals in road games, with just 17 in 9 games, though they have also allowed thew fewest goals – 20 – in the league. In terms of goals per game on the road, the Rangers actually rank ahead of Nashville, Columbus, Florida and Detroit in goal scoring, and third behind Boston and Chicago in goals allowed.
The two goals scored in the second go against the season trends too, with only 13 of the 57 Ranger goals prior to the game having come in the third period. The team actually past Nashville to move out of last in the league with their two second period goals, but are still less than half of the Hurricanes (32), Ducks (32) and Islanders (31).
Interestingly enough, the Rangers are seven teams that have not given up a 5 on 3 goal so far this season, kill off another one yesterday.
Just as well the game was decided by three goals and not two, Rangers are 5-3 when a game is decided by three goals this season, but are just 1-3 in games decided by two goals.