Shattenkirk Lifts Rangers to OT Win Over Florida

Kevin Shattenkirk's second goal of the game lifted the Rangers to a 5-4 overtime victory against the Florida Panthers Saturday to extend the team's win streak to a season-high three games.
J.T. Miller hit Rick Nash with a pass from the Rangers' end to spring a 2-on-1 with Shattenkirk. Nash fed Shattenkirk with a pass and the blueliner buried a shot past Roberto Luongo 1:08 into the extra period to complete the two-game sweep of Florida.
"The ice was a little choppy at the end of the game there," Shattenkirk said. "I just wanted to make sure I settled it down and got my head up. I figured at that point - I know he's a pretty aggressive goalie, so I figured I might have that far side."

New York is now 5-2-2 in its last nine games.
After a scoreless first, the teams traded tallies over the final 40 minutes with no team holding more than a one-goal advantage. Colton Sceviour opened the scoring 3:11 into the middle frame, but Nick Holden answered 4:43 later with his first goal of the season.
Sceviour potted his second of the game at 14:14 of the second, but Shattenkirk had an answer for the Rangers when his wrist shot from the point found a lane through Luongo to even the score 2-2 after two periods.
The Rangers took the lead for the first time 5:18 into the third when Jesper Fast stripped the puck from a Panther at Florida's blueline and floated a pass to the slot to Michael Grabner, who beat Luongo for his fourth goal in his last five games.

Keith Yandle scored 3:27 later to tie the game, 3-3, before Nash deflected a shot by Ryan McDonagh with the Rangers on the point less than three minutes later to put the visitors back in the lead.
With the net empty, Vincent Trocheck beat Henrik Lundqvist with 1:56 remaining to tie the game and send it to overtime before Shattenkirk's heroics lifted the Blueshirts to the second consecutive overtime victory.
Ranger blueliners chipped in with three goals on the night, while McDonagh added two assists on the night.
Nash said it's important for forwards to adapt to defensive schemes and look to the defense to contribute offensively.
"It's up to the forwards to get the puck to them," said Nash, who has two goals and three assists in his last four games. "Tonight we were and the D men did a great job of getting pucks through to the net."
Despite the four goals against, coach Alain Vigneault didn't feel his team allowed Florida many chances and praised his team's structure.
"It's important to get the Ws and play the right way," he said.

Shattenkirk stressed the importance of him and his teammates not becoming complacent despite the recent run of success. But he did allow himself to admit things were moving in the right direction.
"We're on our way," he said. "I think we don't want to sit back and think we're in the clear here. We have to make sure we're building. We played some good teams here on the road and we played some great games. We just have to keep this effort consistent and we'll get a lot of wins."