Recap: Zibanejad's Missile Wins Record-Breaker for Rangers

UNIONDALE, N.Y. -- If you had shut your eyes during overtime, it would have been hard to believe that the visiting team had won this game, not with the mighty roar that erupted once Mika Zibanejad scored to claim it for the Rangers.
Even with eyes wide open it was difficult for the human eye to make out the missile that Zibanejad launched on the first shift of the OT, striding onto a feed into space from Artemi Panarin and lighting the fuse on the kind of shot that a goaltender knows is in the net because he hears it whizz on by.
Maybe Semyon Varlamov saw the vapor trail, but by that time the puck had long since beaten him on his stick side and the Rangers had already come bounding off the bench to surround Zibanejad and celebrate another scintillating, down-to-the-wire win at Nassau Coliseum -- 4-3 over the Islanders in overtime to achieve something that no Ranger team has ever done.
Yes, despite the hordes of Ranger fans who had the place shaking in overtime, and who stayed around to cheer their team down the tunnel, this was in fact foreign ice -- so chalk it up as the Rangers' eighth straight win away from Madison Square Garden, a franchise record for this hockey club that goes back 94 years.

Overall, it was the Rangers' fourth win in a row and makes them 8-1 in their last nine games, and even though it took extra time after Brock Nelson's late equalizer for the Isles, it kept alive this captivating hot streak that has them steadily climbing the ladder in the Eastern Conference.
"Felt like a playoff game in a lot of ways -- just an incredibly fast-paced game, incredibly intense," David Quinn said afterward. "A great feeling for our guys, just so proud of them. Another big, big road win."
Of course, Ranger fans making their voices heard is par for the course when their Blueshirts come to the Coliseum, just as dramatic victories were the staple of their two visits here this season. The first, on Jan. 16, was won by Chris Kreider with less than a half-minute to play in regulation time; Tuesday's game was won by Zibanejad less than a half-minute -- 28 seconds, to be exact -- into the 3-on-3 OT, and was Zibanejad's 100th goal as a Ranger.
That continued a stretch of more than six weeks now without a loss on the road, not since Jan. 11. It is all part of this remarkable run that has vaulted the Blueshirts into the thick of the playoff race entering the final quarter of the season: At night's end the Rangers had climbed to within four points of the Blue Jackets, and within five of the Islanders -- whom they had trailed by 13 points as recently as Jan. 31 -- for the East's two Wild Card spots.
And they accomplished it with a victory amidst the hair-raising atmosphere that is a Rangers-Islanders game in the little rink off the Hempstead Turnpike. Marc Staal is no stranger to that building, nor to these heated rivalry games, nor to the playoff games that these Rangers aspire to and have been getting a little flavor of recently -- out Staal's 988 games in a Blueshirt, 104 of them have come in the postseason.
And yet, that's where Tuesday night's win took him back to.
"In the last couple of years, this is the most meaningful game we've played. So to have that kind of energy before the game, that nervous excitement -- I missed it," Staal said. "I think we were really excited to play, and I thought we handled it well. And we found a way to get a big win."
Both Staal and Quinn pointed to how their team received contributions from everywhere in their lineup, and goals from everywhere, too -- all four lines had a scorer in this game. Panarin was the player to open the scoring and the one to set Zibanejad up for the finish, establishing a new career high with his 32nd goal of the season and increasing his point streak to 10 games, while Zibanejad pushed his own streak to eight.
In between, Greg McKegg and Brett Howden scored when they redirected long shots from a couple of Brendans, Lemieux and Smith. Ryan Lindgren had two assists for his first career multi-point game, and the rookie blueliner led the Rangers with 21:40 on ice.
"I thought our young guys were incredible tonight," said Staal. "They played with a lot of passion and a lot of grit, and that's what you need this time of year when you're pushing to make the playoffs. I was really proud of these guys."
"This is Islander-Ranger playoff-type hockey," Quinn said, "and the way some of our young players (responded) -- I liked Kakko's game, Fox and Lindgren were good, Howden had a big night. Trouba might've had his best game as a Ranger. Just so many guys up and down the lineup that contributed."
But it was Alexandar Georgiev, playing his fourth game this season against the Islanders, who prevented the game from getting away from the Rangers in the first place. Georgiev stopped all 15 shots when the hosts came out flying in the first period, and finished with 42 in all to beat the Isles for the third time this season, and the fifth time in his six starts against them.
The Islanders defeated Georgiev on Jan. 21 at Madison Square Garden; in his three other starts against them this year, all wins, he stopped 112 of 119 shots (.941).
"At this time of year anyone that wins a game in the National Hockey League, your goalie better be good," Quinn said, "and our guy was really good tonight."
"Those are the kinds of games you want to be playing in," said Georgiev, who set a career high with his 15th win. "The energy is a little different."
After Panarin scored late in the first off one of Lindgren's helpers, and McKegg and Jean-Gabriel Pageau, in his Islander debut, traded second-period goals, Howden scored to stake the Rangers to a 3-1 lead with 10:26 to play. But the Islanders battled back to force overtime and salvage a point on third-period goals from Jordan Eberle and Nelson.
Nelson's goal came just 17.9 seconds before the Rangers could finish it off in regulation time, with Varlamov on the bench for an extra skater, who happened to be Nelson.
"We never got down," Quinn said, "we never wavered," and just moments into overtime Panarin stripped Anthony Beauvillier at the Ranger line, found himself swallowed up by two defenders once he reached Islander ice but still was able to put the puck into an area where Zibanejad could skate onto it.
"It feels like it's glued to his stick when he's stickhandling. When he doesn't want to give it up, he doesn't," Zibanejad said of Panarin. Once his teammate had made the pass, though, Zibanejad had room to move in on Varlamov if he'd wanted to.
"Puck popped out," Zibanejad said, "and I just felt like shooting."
He wound up and walloped it, and a roar went up in an opponent's home rink. The Rangers' franchise-record road winning streak will be tested next with a back-to-back Thursday and Friday in Montreal and Philadelphia; it faced a stiff test on Tuesday night, too, and all the Rangers did was pass this latest one.
"It wasn't an easy game," Quinn said. "We weren't clicking on all cylinders, physically. But we were where it mattered."