Rangers Defeat Dallas 2-1 For Sixth Straight Win at Home

For Filip Chytil, the start of the season might have felt for the 19-year-old like it had been a long time since he had scored a goal. Right now, though, it feels like a long time since Chytil hasn't scored.
The Rangers' teenager did it again on Monday night, this time whistling home the tiebreaking goal in the third period of the Blueshirts' 2-1 win over the Dallas Stars at Madison Square Garden - the Rangers' sixth straight victory on home ice. It was the fourth consecutive game in which Chytil has scored a goal, after going the first 17 games without one.

"It feels good winning," said Mika Zibanejad. "And we want to keep this rolling."
Jimmy Vesey scored a no-look goal in the second period for the Rangers, while Brendan Smith's assist on Chytil's winner gave him points in back-to-back games. Chytil's goal made him the first teenager in Rangers history with a four-game goal streak, although two days before he also had become the first teenager with a three-game goal streak.

"We're staying patient and sooner or later someone's going to step up and score that big goal," said Henrik Lundqvist. "The young guy continues to be hot right now and it's great to see."
This one required that patience from the Rangers, because it was all they could do just to clear the puck from their end in the opening 20 minutes. By first intermission, the Stars had 22 shot attempts to the Rangers' six. "We couldn't complete a pass," Quinn said. "Oh my Lord, we couldn't complete a pass."
And yet, by the time the full 60 minutes had been played, the Rangers could look back on a night when they took one of the NHL's most formidable lines - the Jamie Benn-Tyler Seguin-Alexander Radulov unit - and held them to a combined three shots on goal and scoreless at even strength. This coming one day after that line had busted out for nine points in the Stars' 6-2 win in Brooklyn.
"It's a matchup, and you take pride in that, being matched up against the best in the League," said Zibanejad, who drew the assignment along with linemates Jesper Fast and Vlad Namestnikov. "That trio is very dangerous. It's a fun challenge to play against those guys. We kept them on the outside - they had some zone time, but they didn't create too much."
The Rangers held the Stars to seven shots in the first, five in the second and five in the third. They allowed 17 shots on goal in the game while blocking 18. The 17 shots were the fewest the Rangers have allowed in a game in two seasons, since they allowed 16 in a loss to Tampa Bay on March 13, 2017.
And when the shots did get through Monday night, Lundqvist was there to stop all but one of them, and that one he never could have seen. Just moments after Ben Bishop - who made 12 saves in 40 minutes before exiting with a lower-body injury - got Brett Howden's shorthanded 2-on-1 try with the toe of his goalpad, Seguin shot from the right circle through a screen from the 6-2, 205-pound Benn, placing it inside the right post to put Dallas ahead 2:17 into the second.
Vesey got it back with a spectacular effort. Posting up on Roman Polak in the low slot, Vesey took Marc Staal's feed with his back to the net and chipped a no-look backhander between Bishop's pads as he was falling to the ice. It was Vesey's seventh goal this season - tied for second on the Rangers.

Lundqvist preserved the tie by stabbing out the catching glove on Dallas defenseman Miro Heiskanen just 1:05 before second intermission, and then 4:32 after the break, Chytil broke it.
Smith picked up a well-deserved assist, quickly turning a Dallas clear back into offense in the neutral zone. Chytil took Smith's pass near the Dallas line and went to work on Stars defenseman Joel Hanley, going outside-inside and then shooting through Hanley's screen over top of the catching glove of Anton Khudobin, who had replaced the injured Bishop.
"I'm watching Mika how he shoots, I'm watching other guys, I'm trying it in practice," Chytil said. "I'm very happy I scored a goal like that today."
Quinn spoke after the game about how all of his younger players are taking their cues from the Rangers' veterans, in their habits and their work ethic more than anything. Right now it is a recipe for success, to the point where the head coach said he could even feel it in the Garden air the morning of Monday's game.
"It's funny, our pregame skate today, it felt different than some of our other pregame skates - we don't have a lot of them, but it felt different," Quinn said. "There was an enthusiasm - and winning does that, but what also does that is, you can't lie to yourself, and hard work feels good. It feels good. These guys put a lot into it, and when you get rewarded with the wins, then you really have that feeling.
"That's kind of the feeling we have right now."
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