Recap: Rangers Take Care of Business vs. Capitals in 5-2 Win

The New York Rangers finished a mini road trip on Sunday in Washington, D.C. vs. the Capitals, and will return home with another win and two more points under their belt.

The Rangers were able to avoid a repeat of February 25th's debacle, and this time walked away with a 5-2 victory. Igor Shesterkin stopped 26 of 28, Artemiy Panarin had three assists, Vincent Trocheck had a pair, K'Andre Miller opened the scoring and added an assist of his own, and the team got goals from Alexis Lafrenière, Kaapo Kakko, Vladimir Tarasenko and Mika Zibanejad.

1-0 Rangers: K'Andre Miller from Trocheck and Panarin

2-0 Rangers: Lafrenière from Filip Chytil

3-0 Rangers: Kakko from Miller and Jacob Trouba

4-1 Rangers: Tarasenko from Trocheck and Panarin

5-2 Rangers: Zibanejad from Patrick Kane and Panarin

Underlying Numbers of Note

Igor Shesterkin had a strong game between the pipes and kept this close for the Rangers, and prevented Washington from scoring in a number of key situations.

I'll be interested to see how Steve Valiquette's numbers line up, but Money Puck had the Rangers losing the 5v5 expected goals battle, although it is worth noting that the gap really comes toward the end of the game which could be just an example of score effects, and the fact that Shesterkin made a number of saves before Aliaksei Protas' goal from close range.

In anycase, the first two periods saw the Rangers outshoot Washington 17 to 14, and in the final period each team matched their previous collective total with the Blueshirts finishing the 3rd with 17 shots to Washington's 14. The Rangers went 1 for 4 on the power play and their PK was perfect, and they were able to get a lead early, hold it, extend it, and did enough to grab two more points.

The Rangers are off on Monday and Tuesday, and return to action on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. vs. the Tampa Bay Lightning on TNT.