Rangers vs Lightning Reaction

By: Dinner

Rangers vs Lightning Reaction 10/11/22

The Rangers opened the season Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden against a familiar foe in the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Rangers came out strong in the opening period. The speed comparison between the Rangers and Lightning was evident as the Rangers were able to gain a slight edge over the Lightning early when it came to the pace of the passing game and overall puck movement. Early in the first Vitali Kravtsov took a hard hit into the boards from Victor Hedman and was ruled out of the game with an upper body injury. Alexis Lafreniere was bumped up to the second line replacing him but played on the right side which isn’t his preferred side but obviously Panarin trumps Laf in this case. The zebras were not on the Rangers side in the first as there were multiple missed calls but the referees finally made a call when Erik Cernak held Kaapo Kakko in the corner with 3:47 remaining in the first. Unfortunately Andrei Vasilevskiy was on his toes and was able to keep the game scoreless through the powerplay and remainder of the first.

Early in the second Vincent Trocheck took a holding penalty giving the Lightning a power play. Which actually resulted in the first goal of the season. The Rangers penalty kill was out for blood as Mika Zibanejad crashed to the net and was able to slip a beautiful backhander past the Lightning netminder 3:25 into the second to get the scoring started for the Rangers. The referees didn’t stop there minutes later two penalties were called on the same play. First, a tripping call on Miller and then an elbow call on Goodrow gave the lightning a 5 on 3 penalty, which led to the trademarked Steven Stamkos one timer to tie the game at one a piece going into the third.

Five minutes into the third the Rangers found themselves back on the power play and Mika Zibanejad was doing Mika Zibanejad things. The Rangers forward received a crisp slot pass from Panarin and was able to fire off a one timer past Vasilevskiy blocker side netting his second goal of the game and giving the Rangers a 2-1 lead. About midway through the third Carpenter fired off a wrist shot near the blue line that was redirected into the net by Barclay Goodrow to give the Rangers that extra insurance goal that they needed. Mika Zibanejad was still hungry to complete the hat trick with less than a minute left in the game, the Lightning had the net empty and Mika Zibanejad sent the puck the length of the ice and unfortunately rang the post. Unable to complete the hat trick but pulled out the Rangers win.

The Rangers opened the season in the win column and will be on the road Thursday & Friday against the Wild & Jets. I was extremely impressed by the Rangers play last night, it honestly