In four games last season, Carl Hagelin had just one assist against the Lightning. This year he already has three goals and two assists in the two games between the two clubs. In fact, Hagelin hasn’t registered a point in the other nine games he’s played this year.
Dan Girardi went from a team equalling worst -3 plus/minus to a +1 last night thanks to being on the ice for four of the Rangers’ five goals – and not being on the ice for the sole Lightning score. Girardi was one of three players who erased negative plus/minus last night, with Ryan McDonagh making in back from -3 to Even, and Hagelin back from -1 to Even.
Arron Asham, Darroll Powe and Chris Kreider all moved into positive territory, each of the three moving from Even to +1.
Asham also became the 644th player to score a regular season goal for the Rangers, although 105 of those players – including Asham – only ever registered one goal in their Rangers careers. It was the first time the Rangers fourth line had scored a goal this season. He was the 768th to register a point, and has now registered a goal for each of the Atlantic Division teams.
Henrik Lundqvist made his 478th regular season appearance to tie Petr Nedved for 40th all time amongst Rangers. He has five more players to pass to become just the 35th player to reach 500, and another sixty games to catch Ed Giacomin for third all time amongst goalies.
Ryan Callahan scored his 108th goal as a Ranger, and ties Edgar Laprade for 49th all time on the Rangers goal scoring table.
The Rangers maintained their perfect record when scoring first, moving to 4-0 with positive results in the last two games. Unfortunately the power play continues to be an issue, with New York going 0-4 and dropping back to 29th behind Boston with a rating of just 10.0 percent.
Better news on the penalty kill, which has moved up from 17th to 14th over the past two games thanks to perfect records against the Isles and Bolts. Their 81.2 efficiency rank is still well off the 92.9 percent rates that the league leading Bruins and Blackhawks carry however.
With two more goals in the third last night, the Rangers now have 13 in the final period, tied for fourth in the league. The two first period goals were a bit of a rarity though, and moved the team up to eight for the season in the opening stanza, which interestingly enough is two more than the Devils have scored in the first.
With five more goals last night at MSG, the Rangers remarkably are ranked second behind just the Lightning in goals scored on home ice with 23, at an average of 3.29. It helps that seven of the eleven games they’ve played so far have been at MSG, but still not a bad stat. By contrast, they’ve only scored six goals in four road games, second worst in the league in total goals on the road.
Rangers are ranked fourth in the league in win percentage when outshooting their opponents. Last night’s win made it four out of five when getting more shots on net, trailing New Jersey, Dallas – who have just one game they’ve registered more shots, and Boston. Should be interesting to see who gets more shots on Tuesday night.
The hits keep rolling, with New York tied for the league lead with the Toronto Maple Leafs at 328 for the season. Hits can be a little subjective, so it’s possible that there is an MSG bias here and with seven of the eleven games so far at home…
John Totorella mentioned the team needs to get better at blocking shots, and after eleven games the team is ranked a lowly 22nd in the league with 148 shots blocked, 50 off the league leading pace set by the Edmonton Oilers.