"You're giving up 2-on-1s and breakaways, one, two, three chances right in front in a row; he's a tremendous goalie and it's going to be tough to stop those consistently," Rangers captain Ryan McDonagh said. "We've put him in a bad spot, no question about it, and that's not fair."
Stepan and Zibanejad, who was playing his first game since Nov. 20, when he broke his left fibula, each scored twice. Kreider and Pavel Buchnevich also scored, Buchnevich had two assists, and Mats Zuccarello had three assists.
Lehtonen made 12 saves in relief of Niemi, who allowed six goals on 28 shots and was pulled with 12:34 remaining, after Zibanejad scored to make it 7-6. Lehtonen made three saves in the final five seconds.
"We did what we had to do," Benn said. "We hunkered down to the end and found a way to get two points."
Eaves, Sharp and Benn scored 5:20 apart in the first period to build a 3-1 lead at 17:54 after Stepan made it 1-0 27 seconds into the game.
Roussel made it 4-1 at 4:32 of the second. The Rangers got goals from Zibanejad and Buchnevich 2:10 apart to make it 4-3 at 12:06, but Sharp scored on a wraparound 48 seconds later. Cracknell and Eakin followed in the next 4:46 to extend the lead to 7-3.
"It's my job to give the group confidence and let them play the game, and when I'm not coming up with the saves, we start running around a little bit and make it even tougher for ourselves and me," Lundqvist said. "But it starts with me coming up with the saves."
