Rangers Vs. Blackhawks Recap: Rangers Hang On To Spoil Hawks Cup Celebration

The New York Rangers kicked off the 2015-2016 regular season with a bang tonight and defeated the Chicago Blackhawks by a final score of 3-2. It definitely wasn't pretty at times, but the Rangers were able to get some early insurance goals and held on to earn their first victory of this very young season. Henrik Lundqvist was his usual self right from the opening faceoff, and was practically in mid-season form with some of the saves he made tonight.

While it took a while for the game to get started with the Hawks raising their Stanley Cup banner, the Rangers got off to their own quick start once the puck dropped. Just 1:43 into regulation, Oscar Lindberg notched his first NHL goal and put the Rangers up 1-0 on a nifty pass from J.T. Miller. It started with a rush back the other way which was generated by Viktor Stalberg, he dropped the puck off to Miller coming down the left wing.

Miller attempted to feed a seam pass back to Stalberg, but it was blocked and he found Lindberg all alone off to the right side of the net. Lindberg showed a ton of patience and rifled a scorching one-timer over Corey Crawford's shoulder to get the Rangers on the board.

After the early opening goal, both teams settled in and continued to trade chances at both ends of the ice. The Blackhawks were able to grab some momentum after a few strong shifts in the offensive zone, and that allowed them to find the game tying goal at the 14:24 mark.

Much like Lindberg, Artemi Panarin came away with the first goal of his career, and pulled the Hawks even with under six minutes remaining in the opening frame. While it appeared that the goal took some wind out of the Rangers, they responded right back with a pair of goals coming from Kevin Klein and Derek Stepan. Klein came away with the first goal as the Rangers scored on the delayed penalty which game them the 2-1 lead.

Keith Yandle got it all started with a beautiful cross-ice feed over to Klein on the faceoff dot, and Klein finished it off with an absolute bomb that deflected in off of the crossbar. About two and a half minutes later, Derek Stepan converted on a Blackhawks mishap to put the Rangers up a pair heading into the intermission.

Kevin Hayes deserves a ton of praise on Stepan's goal, mainly for his awareness to flip the puck over Crawford and find Stepan in the crease. The Rangers couldn't have had a better finish to the period and as a result, it appeared as if they had control of the momentum heading into the second period. However, the Hawks came out flying in the middle frame, and came away with an early goal coming from Teuvo Teravainen.

Dan Girardi's failed clear and turnover gave Jonathan Toews plenty of time to work with and he fed it to a wide open Teravainen off to the left side of the net. Lundqvist didn't stand much of a chance once the puck was fired his way, and the Rangers had to dig deep to fight out of the hole they had put themselves in. Unfortunately, the Rangers continued to struggle throughout the remainder of the game but were able to keep the Hawks in check until late in the third period.

With a little less than a minute left in the game, the Rangers were in full prevent defense mode as the Hawks pulled Crawford in favor of an extra attacker. Patrick Kane appeared to knock home the game tying goal with under 30 seconds remaining, but the play was quickly waived off by Steve Kozari. After a quick meeting by the penalty boxes, the officials confirmed that there was an intent to blow the whistle and the goal was disallowed.

The Rangers were able to catch a break and they held on to take a 3-2 win on opening night in Chicago. Thankfully, this is just game one, and while there were some blemishes, there will be plenty of time to correct the issues as the season carries on.

One win down and it's on to the Columbus Blue Jackets.