Recap: Blueshirts Sweep Trip on Kreider's Late Strike

COLUMBUS -- You could point to a little bit of a everything on the three-game road trip that the Rangers just wrapped up: A wire-to-wire win and a thrilling comeback; superb goaltending and clutch, timely goal-scoring; a dominant offensive line and contributions from all around the lineup.
Among the only things you could not point to on the road trip was a loss.
Up against three games in four nights across three cities, the Rangers went out this week and swept it. The finale was a Valentine's Day division matchup with the Columbus Blue Jackets, and this time it was Chris Kreider's turn to tie a bow on it, scoring the tiebreaking goal with 3:11 remaining to propel the Blueshirts to a 3-1 victory on Friday night and a plane ride home to New York with six points among the cargo.
The Rangers played 185 minutes of hockey in a span of about 73 hours; they scored wins in Winnipeg, St. Paul and Columbus by a count of 11-5. And now they have their first four-game winning streak of the season, and a 7-2 record since the All-Star break, right as they prepare to host the NHL-leading Boston Bruins on Sunday afternoon at Madison Square Garden.

"The way we've been battling, the way we've been winning the games, in different ways," said Mika Zibanejad, "this feels really, really good."
"It's a big step in the right direction for us," added Kreider, "but we've still got a long way to go. Obviously there's excitement in the room after a stretch like this and after a win like that. But enjoy it for a few minutes and get ready for arguably the best team in the League coming to MSG."
Those two players along with Pavel Buchnevich were a line that no opponent on this trip had much of an answer for. Zibanejad scored the key goal of Thursday night's thriller in Minnesota, which he tied with 1:06 remaining to complete the Rangers' two-goal comeback in the final eight minutes of regulation, before scoring the game-decider in the shootout.
One night later, he teed up Kreider for the go-ahead strike in Columbus, just as a power play expired and just as the Rangers appeared headed for a second straight night of overtime.
It was the culmination of a monster road trip for that line: The trio combined for seven goals and 12 points in the three games, with winning scores in each. Going back 10 games, they have 19 goals and 35 points together.
Each member of that line had goals in two of the three games this week; Buchnevich was the one who started Thursday's comeback with 8:09 to play, then opened the scoring just 22 seconds into Friday's match, his sixth goal in the last 10 games.
"Yeah, they've been good, they've been really good," David Quinn said on Friday. "And all three of them at different times."
"We've been playing for quite some time now as far as our line goes, and it just feels good right now," Zibanejad said. "And I felt like all four lines were rolling this whole trip. These were just really good team efforts, team wins on this trip."
That certainly includes the goaltending, which got a win from Igor Shesterkin in the trip opener in Winnipeg, then victories on back-to-back nights from Alexandar Georgiev to finish it off. Georgiev made 36 saves on Friday night to complete a sort of sweep of his own: He won both the Rangers' visits to Columbus this season, in the process turning out 81 of 84 shots (.964) in the two games at Nationwide Arena.
He was at his best in the second period of this one, when he made 21 of his 36 stops. Oliver Bjorkstrand was the only Blue Jacket who could get one by him, chipping a backhander around a crowd with 1:08 left in a second period that the Rangers by the end were just trying to survive intact. Bjorkstrand, in fact, has been the only Blue Jacket to score in the Rangers' last two meetings with Columbus, which on Friday night lost for the fourth straight time (0-2-2) and was held to a single goal for the fifth time in their last eight games.
They had a chance to get their attack in gear with Buchnevich in the box for four minutes during the second period, but the Rangers' penalty-killers never allowed them into a rhythm and Georgiev stopped all four of their shots. "To me the story of the night were our special teams," Quinn said, though a Ranger penalty kill that was a perfect 8-for-8 on the trip was a big story of the week, too.
"Our penalty kill was immense," the Coach said.
With 5:13 left in a 1-1 game it was the power play's turn, after Columbus had been caught with six skaters on the ice, and just about the moment Jakob Lilja stepped out of the box to rejoin play, Zibanejad took a superb blue-line-to-goal-line pass from Adam Fox -- who was on the top power-play unit replacing Tony DeAngelo, out with an upper-body injury -- and relayed it into the middle for Kreider, who smoked a shot past the blocker of Elvis Merzlikins (25 saves).
"Foxy did an unbelievable job keeping it up there and opening that lane up, and I just tried to be an option for him. Unbelievable backhand pass," Zibanejad said. "They were pressuring so hard so that middle was open, and Kreids was in the perfect spot.
"I didn't think it was the best pass. But he made the most out of it."
He turned it into his 23rd goal of the season, and his team's fourth straight win, once Ryan Strome hit the empty net with 1:11 left to seal it. And it all pulled the Blueshirts to within seven points of the Wild Card Blue Jackets with two games in hand, while sending the Rangers on their journey home a happy bunch, and their Coach more than a little proud.
"We've been proud of them for a long time now. We think we've really made some great strides," Quinn said. "We just continue to play good hockey, at a clutch time right now, and obviously (Thursday) night coming back the way we did, and then (Friday) night scoring late to win the game…
"We've talked about the fact that we have come together as a team over the last few months; it hasn't shown more so than it has the last few games."