New York would tie the game midway through the period when Michael Grabner capitalized on a Garrison turnover in his own zone. Grabner scooped up the loose puck in the slot between the circles and beat Budaj for his team-leading 27th of the season.
But Point's goal in the third would snap the 2-2 tie. Point broke in on a three-on-two and redirected an Ondrej Palat pass that beat Raanta through the legs for the winner.
"In the third period, I don't know what happened there," Raanta said. "They got a two-on-three opportunity and the guy was just throwing the puck to the net and the guy had an open stick there. He just redirected that."
Raanta faced just 16 shots, and Tampa had just another 24 either attempted or blocked.
"They didn't shoot at all," Raanta said. "Kind of a weird game. Kind of a tough game for a goalie to play. Sometimes games are like this. Sometimes you get 50 shots and sometimes you get 20. I still feel we played good enough in the first period, so if we could have kept going like that, we could have won this game."
Tonight's game finished a stretch of five games in eight days for the Rangers, including four on the road in Florida, Carolina and Detroit. Derek Stepan said while the team did not play as well as it had 24 hours earlier against the Red Wings, he and his teammates won't use that as a crutch.
"We talk about it all year that a lot of teams are playing a lot of hockey and it's tough to really point the finger at that," Stepan said. "It's never okay to lose."
