Rangers ease past Blackhawks, extend winning streak to 7

CHICAGO --The New York Rangers extended their winning streak to a season-long seven games with a 7-1 victory against the Chicago Blackhawks at United Center on Sunday.

Artemi Panarin had a goal and two assists, Vincent Trocheck, Kaapo Kakko and Filip Chytil each had a goal and an assist, and Adam Fox had three assists for New York (18-10-5). Igor Shesterkin made 29 saves.
"We're playing, finding ways to win hockey games," Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said. "We're just playing as a group, and it's four lines and six [defensemen] on the goals. Everyone's playing good, solid hockey. You get on a little roll and things happen good. We weren't getting much puck luck the first part of the season, now we're getting a lot more of it."

Arvid Soderblom made 19 saves for the Blackhawks (7-19-4), who have lost seven straight (outscored 31-7) since defeating the Rangers 5-2 on Dec. 3.
Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews became the 11th set of teammates, and second active, to play in 1,000 regular-season NHL games together.
"I don't know, it's hard to say," Toews said. "There's moments where we played good hockey, and then we make one mistake and it ends up in the back of our net. And right now, those moments seem to sting more than they usually do, and it feels like we're putting this weight on our shoulders where when things go wrong, they go really wrong, and it keeps snowballing in the wrong direction for us and we're mentally having a difficult time recovering as a team.
"It's hard to pinpoint one thing when there's a lot of breakdowns, a lot of odd-man rushes, especially early on, and they're capitalizing on those chances, and then it's hard to recover from that, and you look up at the scoreboard and it's 3-0, 4-1, 5-1, whatever it is in your own building. It's not a good feeling, but give this group credit. Even though we've had a tough go, I think there's still that commitment to each other and to figuring this out to getting that good feeling in this room again."

Chytil gave New York a 1-0 lead at 13:04 of the first period, scoring five-hole from the low slot off a quick pass from
Alexis Lafreniere
.
Panarin made it 2-0 at 16:55 with a one-timer from the high slot on a rush.
Kakko extended the lead to 3-0 at 19:03. Lafreniere skated the puck down the left wing before passing back to Chytil, who fed Kakko in the right circle for a one-timer.
Kakko has scored eight goals in 33 games this season after he had seven in 43 games last season.
Philipp Kurashev cut it to 3-1 at 1:33 of the second period when his backhand centering pass deflected in off the stick of Rangers defenseman Jacob Trouba.
Trouba, however, restored New York's three-goal lead at 10:28 with a slap shot from above the right circle after skating into a drop pass from Mika Zibanejad.
"I think going back to our last game in Philly (a 6-3 victory on Saturday), where we kind of went back and forth, gave up some goals, we kind of stuck with it and just kept playing our game," Trouba said. "I don't think we let the momentum affect us either way, good or bad. Same thing tonight. It was good."

Trocheck pushed it to 5-1 at 19:44 when he redirected a shot from Fox through his legs on a power play.
Vitali Kravtsov scored five-hole on a breakaway to make it 6-1 at 8:56 of the third period before Jonny Brodzinski scored at 13:37 for the 7-1 final.
"That was ugly, for sure," Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said. "I don't know how to sum it up. I thought, again, we had a really good first period, start to the first period, and then somehow they find a way to score a goal. I think at the end of the first period, we gave up a few odd-man rushes, a couple bad decisions, and that led to that.
"We played so hard and we can't find the back of the net. When that happens, then it seems we can't reset and go back to the way we were playing. It goes 2-0, 3-0. It's happened a few times. I think we have to find a way to have more fight and pushback and not look exhausted, feel exhausted, whether it's mentally or physically. We just have to find a way to get out of it."
NOTES:Panarin's three-point game was his 65th in the NHL. Since his debut in 2015-16, only Connor McDavid (93) and Leon Draisaitl (69) of the Edmonton Oilers have more. … Blackhawks defenseman Jarred Tinordi left at 2:25 of the second period after he was hit in the face by the puck. Richardson said Tinordi, who was previously cut on the chin by a skate blade against the Winnipeg Jets on Dec. 9, was being evaluated.