Stadium Series recap: Rangers score 6 straight and rout the Devils in Yankee Stadium
After a slow start, the Rangers scored six unanswered goals, and matched a season-high with 7 to down the Devils outdoors.
Henrik Lundqvist was napping, and then woken up at the start of warmups. With puck drop delayed to do a glare issue, players had to find a way to pass the time before things got underway. Both Lundqvist and the Rangers struggled to find their footing early on.
And then they never looked back.
After falling behind the Devils 3-1, the Rangers scored six unanswered goals, and downed their Metropolitan Division rivals in Yankee Stadium.
New Jersey got on the scoreboard first, when Patrik Elias broke ahead of the Rangers' defense with New York in the middle of a change. Elias beat Lundqvist on the short-side to give the Devils a lead just over five minutes in.
The Rangers would respond by getting their forecheck going, and it would pay off, as Dominic Moore would swipe a rebound past Martin Brodeur to tie the score at one.
The fast-paced, high scoring first period continued, as Elias would get his second on the power play, and then Travis Zajac would push the score to 3-1 after slamming home a puck that deflected off Jaromir Jagr in front.
Facing a two goal deficit heading into the intermission, Marc Staal was able to cut the lead in half when he beat Brodeur off a bad angle to make it a 3-2 game heading into the second period.
In the middle frame, the Rangers pushed the tempo, while the Devils struggled to make defensive plays in transition. Under three minutes into the period, John Moore found Mats Zuccarello for an easy tap-in on a 2-on-1 to knot the score at three.
Zuccarello would give the Rangers their first lead of the day just over midway through the second, when he again got out on a 2-on-1. This time, Derick Brassard found Zuccarello, who was able to easily slide the puck past a prone Brodeur to make it 4-3.
With the Devils still struggling to get any zone time, the Rangers capitalized and put the game out of reach before the game made it to the third period. Carl Hagelin threw a puck on net that ticked off a Devil and into the back of the net to push it to 5-3, and then Rick Nash scored when his centering feed hit off another Devil and slid past Brodeur to make it a 6-3 game.
Facing a three goal deficit, the Devils were never able to find any sustained zone pressure or momentum in the third period. Derek Stepan capped the day's scoring when he drew a penalty shot, and snapped a wrist shot under the bar, and over the glove of Corey Schneider, who relieved Brodeur to start the third period.
In a game that started with a glare delay, and featured snow flurries, the Rangers were able to maintain their usual, quicker pace, despite the elements. While it took New York the better part of the first period to find its footing, once the Rangers got going, the Devils struggled to match their pace.
When the Rangers took the lead in the second period, the Devils tried to force the effort, only to give up odd-man rushes and give New York chances to pad its edge. Lundqvist settled in, and the Devils couldn't find an answer to the Rangers' scoring surge.
Six Blueshirts recorded multi-point games, and Lundqvist only ended up facing 22 shots. While he'll just show up in the box score tomorrow as a plus-1, Kevin Klein had a very solid game, playing the third-most ice time of any Ranger skater, and simply doing his job in his own zone.
The Rangers will get another crack at the Stadium Series and Yankee Stadium Wednesday when they play the Islanders in the Bronx.
