It’s hard to call any game in January a “must win”, but that’s exactly what last night’s contest with the Bruins was. Against a reeling team, with the conference standings tightening up and after taking a 2-0 lead, New York had to bring home a victory. They did, but it took a shootout to get them a 3-2 victory.
Maybe the Rangers starting thinking about tonight’s game against the Devils because after establishing the lead they sat back on their heels and let the Bruins back into the game. For the last period and overtime they relied on Henrik Lundqvist to make bug saves and bail out a shaky defensive effort.
Jaromir Jagr scored a goal at the start of the shootout and it looked like it would hold up until Patrice Bergeron tied the game on the Bruins' last chance. After two more rounds of the shootout, Petr Sykora took the puck and deposited it into the net for the Rangers. When the Bruins failed to score on their last chance the game was over and the Rangers had escaped with two needed points.
Photo by AP/Michael Dwyer via Yahoo
