Chris Kreider's third period shorthanded goal pushes Rangers to 3-2 win over Bruins

Chris Kreider’s third period shorthanded goal pushes Rangers to 3-2 win over Bruins

Chris Kreider scored a tie-breaking shorthanded goal with 8:06 left Wednesday night as the Rangers beat the Bruins, 3-2, in an Original Six matchup at Madison Square Garden.

The Rangers, who had snapped a three-game losing streak with a win on Sunday, have now won two straight. They have won five of six against Boston, dating back to last season.

Igor Shesterkin made just 17 saves for the Rangers, but he was huge down the stretch.

With Matt Rempe in the penalty box for holding, the Rangers created a two-on-one chance with Mika Zibanejad carrying the puck into Boston’s zone. He flipped it to Kreider, who fired a wrist shot for his 16th goal of the season and first shorthanded goal of the year.

Here are some takeaways…

– The Rangers tied the score at two with 14:33 left in the third, just after their power play expired. They got the man advantage after Boston’s Brad Marchand crashed into Shesterkin and was sent off for roughing once officials broke up the ensuing scrum in front of the Ranger net. With the PP ending, K’Andre Miller fired a shot on net that slipped through to Vincent Trocheck, who tapped it in for his 16th goal of the season.

– The Rangers took a 1-0 lead with 13:53 left in the second period when Artemi Panarin hammered a one-timer past Joonas Korpisalo to complete a play set up by J.T. Miller. Though Miller received no statistical credit on the sequence, he did start it, plowing into Brandon Carlo on the forecheck behind the Boston net. Just before impact, Carlo flicked the puck toward the corner, where Zibanejad corralled it and fed Panarin. It was Panarin’s 23rd goal of the season, and Miller’s hit was a prime example of what the Rangers were hoping to add to their attack when they traded for him. Panarin, who leads the Rangers in goals, now has points in seven of his last eight games.

– The Ranger lead was short-lived, however, when the Bruins scored two goals within a 16-second span later in the period. With 4:57 left in the second, Boston star David Pastrnak fired the puck past Shesterkin for his 28th goal of the season. Elias Lindholm then tallied another with 4:41 remaining, his fifth goal of the season, and the game tilted. Pastrnak has a 12-game point streak.

– The first period ended scoreless and was mostly ho-hum. The Rangers held the Bruins without a shot on goal for the first 12:39 of the period and outshot Boston, 8-3, in the period overall. The Rangers, who came into the game with the seventh-ranked penalty-kill in the NHL, wiped out one Bruins power play, which came after Ryan Lindgren was whistled for tripping just 41 seconds into the game.