Four points out of the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference midway through the regular season, the New York Rangers hope to build on the momentum of their first overtime victory of the season when they face the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday in Las Vegas.
Before embarking on this challenging three-game western swing, the Rangers reached the 40-point mark with their 3-2 win over the New Jersey Devils on Thursday. New York is 3-1-1 in five games since the calendar flipped to 2025 and will also visit Colorado and Utah.
Sam Carrick one-timed a Reilly Smith crossing pass from the left circle to finish a 2-on-1 break at 2:48 of overtime to touch off a wild celebration by the end boards. It was Carrick’s first overtime winner in his 10-year NHL career.
“I think I might have blacked out, to be honest, still trying to catch my breath,” Carrick said of the celebration afterward.
“All the wins are big when you’re pushing up the ladder,” New York coach Peter Laviolette said. “The two points and the win are the biggest thing. You’d like to see the game match the score, and I actually thought it did. I thought we played really well, especially defensively.”
The Rangers blocked 20 shots and finished with a 63.8 percent to 36.2 percent edge in the face-off circle. Igor Shesterkin, back after missing four games with an upper-body injury, finished with 21 saves, while Adam Fox and Artemi Panarin each scored power-play goals.
“It’s a big road trip coming up, some good teams,” Fox said. “Played some good hockey recently and carrying momentum and just building on it is big for us.”
First up is a game against a Vegas team that entered Friday’s action with a league-best 59 points but comes in off a 4-0 home loss to the New York Islanders on Thursday.
It marked just the fifth loss in 22 home games (17-5-0) this season for the Pacific Division-leading Golden Knights, who were shut out for third time. Vegas had not been blanked since Nov. 20 at Toronto (3-0). Bruce Cassidy’s squad, which hasn’t lost back-to-back games in regulation since Nov. 17-20 against Washington and the Maple Leafs, then responded with a 17-3-1 run that ended with the loss to the Islanders.
“Tonight we didn’t execute offensively very well,” Cassidy said after the loss to the Islanders. “Our defensive game I thought was actually very good. Our goals against started on our stick. Now you’re in a bit of scramble mode from there. … Got to be better against the Rangers.”
“We know we’ve got it in this room,” forward Victor Olofsson said. “We just didn’t really execute tonight. … Definitely look at this game (at practice on Friday) and see what we can learn from and then just turn the page and focus on the Rangers here in the next game.”
Cassidy said “we’ll anticipate” that forward Ivan Barbashev, tied for the team goal-scoring lead with 15, will be back in the lineup Saturday. Barbashev has been sidelined since Dec. 15 with an upper-body injury but took part in a full-contact practice on Friday.
–Field Level Media
