Adam Henrique’s two goals aren’t enough to save Ducks from loss to Rangers
The two most consistent parts of the New York Rangers came up big during the third period of Sunday night’s win over the Ducks.
Artemi Panarin scored the tiebreaking goal with less than six minutes to go in the third period as the Rangers scored four times in the final 20 minutes for a 5-2 victory at Honda Center.
Panarin’s slap shot from the left faceoff circle after a cross-ice pass from Adam Fox was his 28th goal of the season, tied for fourth in the NHL, and gave him points in six of his last eight games (three goals, four assists).
It also was New York’s 41st goal on the power play, tied for third most in the league. It is also second with a 28.7% success rate.
The Rangers rallied for their seventh third-period comeback win of the season after trailing 2-1 at second intermission. Only Calgary, Colorado and Detroit have more with eight apiece.
Hours after finding out Alex Killorn will undergo knee surgery, the Ducks lose to the Sharks 5-3 for their ninth loss in 11 games.
“We worked tonight, the win was hard,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. “As the game moved on, we were having a hard time climbing back into it, so the fact that we just stuck with it I thought was a really great job by the guys.”
Chris Kreider and Vincent Trocheck each had a goal and an assist for the Rangers, who had dropped six of their last eight coming into the game. Will Cuylle and Jimmy Vesey also scored, and Igor Shesterkin made 16 saves.
Adam Henrique scored twice in the first period to give the Ducks a 2-0 lead, and Troy Terry and Leo Carlsson each had two assists. Lukas Dostal made 29 saves as the Ducks lost for the fifth time in their last six overall and sixth straight at home.
Trocheck got the Rangers to 2-1 with a power-play goal at with 2:02 left in the second period. Fox dumped the puck into the offensive zone, Kreider got the bounce off the boards behind the net and made a nice pass to Trocheck, who put in a wrist shot for his 15th of the season.
Trocheck has 16 points in the last 14 games (seven goals, nine assists), second most on the Rangers since Dec. 27.
Mason McTavish appeared to give the Ducks a two-goal advantage again at 5:18 of the third, but it was disallowed after the Rangers successfully challenged that it was offside.
“I thought there was some energy at the end of the second for us, carried it on to the third and then they came at us after they disallowed the goal,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said. “They had a couple of sustained shifts and we kind of never found our footing after that.”
Cuylle tied the score at 10:10 of the third and ended an 11-game goal drought with a redirect of Jacob Trouba’s shot from near the blue line.
Panarin then put the Rangers on top with 5:37 left with their second power-play goal of the game.
“I think our power play, it’s easy to, you have such a high percentage, that you go out there and you almost expect to score,” said Fox, who had two assists. “Obviously, you don’t score every time you go out, but you wanna make an impact on the game.”
Kreider put in his own deflection with 3:53 remaining and Vesey sealed it with an empty-netter with 36 seconds to go.
The Rangers, coming off a 2-1 loss to the Kings on Saturday, improved to 8-0-0 in the second half of back-to-back games this season.
Henrique scored 51 seconds into the game when he went top shelf with a backhand that beat Shesterkin on his glove side. It was the third time this season the Ducks have scored in the game’s opening minute, second most in the NHL.
Henrique made it 2-0 with 4:23 left in the first when he got the loose puck just outside the crease and jammed it past defenseman Ryan Lindgren and Shesterkin.
Up next for the Ducks: vs. the Buffalo Sabres at Honda Center on Tuesday night.
