For 59 minutes and 59 seconds there was plenty of nothing at the Garden. The Rangers were trailing Dallas 1-0 in a game that had been played for the most part on the Stars’ strict defensive terms.
But 59:59 does not a game make. As Adam Fox, who would emerge as one of the heroes, said, “We talk about playing for 60 minutes and this is why. It took the full 60. We played to the last second.”
Oh, baby, to mimic the phrase of a popular one-time Rangers goaltender, broadcaster and team president, did the Rangers wring this one out in the end to record a dramatic victory that stands as the most magical of the season.
K’Andre Miller, an emerging nation with a ceiling as tall as those in coveted pre-WWII apartment buildings in Manhattan, blasted one through from 40 feet with a fraction of a second left on the clock (no official time was ever given) to cap a wild six-on-five situation in which the Blueshirts kept the puck in the zone following a crazy quilt of blocked shots and deflections.
And then, after a wild and crazy celebration — “celly,” as the young folks such as Alexis Lafreniere say — on the ice and the bench, there was another one after Fox went to the net, found a loose puck and roofed a backhand at 1:16 of overtime to give the Rangers a 2-1 victory and extend their recent run to 13-2-2.
One game does not prove a thing and neither is a 17-game stretch dispositive. But for the first time, following consecutive comeback victories over Minnesota and Dallas within three days, the Rangers seem to be forming a group that is more than its collective star parts.
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The doom and gloom that hovered over the club for much of the first seven weeks in which the Rangers won only 11 of their first 26 games (11-10-5) has evaporated. Those days seem from an era in which Val Kamensky wore the Blueshirt.
“We remember it but it’s a distant memory,” said Fox, who is putting himself in prime position to gain his second Norris in three years. “We had our slump. We know what we’re capable of.”
The Rangers generated a season-high 35 scoring chances against the Wild on Tuesday, per NaturalStatTrick. They had seven through two periods in this one, and 14 for the night that equaled the seventh-lowest of the year.
There were too many turnovers trying to make east-west plays against a Stars team that was content to shut it down when it was 0-0 and then 1-0 on Tyler Seguin’s power-play goal at 17:53 of the second period following a botched penalty-kill change by Barclay Goodrow.
“They collapsed into the middle and we didn’t play smart the first half,” said head coach Gerard Gallant, who noted that many of his players had been weakened by the flu. “We caused a lot of our own stuff. But I like the way we came back and played the third period.
“It was a solid game overall. It was huge for the team.”
Lafreniere played a creditable game on the left side with Mika Zibanejad and Kaapo Kakko in the injured Chris Kreider’s absence, No. 13 getting a season-high 21:21 in which he had three shots on six attempts. That included a first-period deflection that forced Jake Oettinger to make perhaps his best save of at least the first 50 minutes or so.
“It felt good, I’m a little tired,” said Lafreniere, who started the OT as part of a 23-and-under group that included Filip Chytil and Braden Schneider. “I tried to build a little chemistry, make some plays, keep it simple and get into the game.
“We had some good shifts. I still can be better.”
About the overtime assignment?
“I said to Fil, ‘We’ve got to win the faceoff,’ ” Lafreniere said. “We got one good look.”
And then on came Zibanejad and on came Panarin, creating chaos by driving the net and leaving the puck for Fox, who took his time before going up top.
“It was kind of a scramble,” Fox said. “Bread got me the puck.”
Gallant switched up his units down the stretch, moving first Goodrow and Vitali Kravtsov and then Vincent Trocheck and Panarin onto Zibanejad’s flanks while reuniting the Kid Line.
The coach also paired offensive forces Fox and Miller for 6:49 (including six-on-five) in which the Rangers out-attempted Dallas 11-2. This is a tandem with which the coach will likely increasingly experiment when his team is trailing.
Thursday, the Rangers were trailing. Then they weren’t.
“Zero-point-two seconds,” Miller said. “The rest is history.”
History will be written by the winners.
