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The Rangers opened their four game West Coast swing with a 2-0 win against the Kraken. Jonathan Quick stopped all 24 shots he saw, including several in key stretches of the second period, in picking him his second straight shutout. Alexis Lafreniere and Zac Jones tallied the two goals for New York. The Blueshirts head to Vancouver to face the Canucks on Tuesday.
Lines versus Seattle:
Panarin - Trocheck - Laf
Kreider - Zib - Smith
Cuylle - Brodzinski - Kakko
Edström - Carrick - Vesey
Miller - Fox
Lindgren - Trouba
Jones - Schneider
A few thoughts:
1) Quick, Quick and Quick: as Mollie Walker noted, Sunday, Quick became just the fourth goalie in the past 15 years to earn consecutive shutouts at the age of 38 or older, joining Mike Smith, Martin Brodeur and Dwayne Roloson. The last time he did it was Oct. 18-22 in 2011 (3) with the Kings when he was 25. Unreal stuff from No. 32.
The scoreless streak is at 128:07 and Quick looks like a 19 year old, not one who is 39. Quick's side-to-side movement has been elite, same with his puck tracking and reactions in net. He wasn't tested a lot, but when needed, he came up big.
Wthe win, Quick sits just three shy of 400 in his Hall of Fame career. He now sits at 4-0 with an NHL-leading .970 save percentage and 0.91 goals against average. We are running out of superlatives to describe his play. All that said, there is no goalie controversy. Quick allows management to rest Igor Shesterkin more frequently if needed and provides the team a high quality 1B in net, which most other teams lack.
2) Road warriors: New York has won six of their first seven games on the road. They are first in the league in goals per game away from home at 4.43, goals-against per game at 1.43 and goal differential at plus-21. Maybe they can wear the road whites at home?
3) Jones and Braden Schneider were once again very good. Despite, as Peter Baugh reported, the duo having the least amount of ice time of Rangers defensemen, logging 14:54 and 14:29, respectively, New York had more than 55 percent of the expected goal share with them on the ice. As I have said a few times, to me, this is really the second pair right now.
K'Andre Miller may have had his best game in weeks. He made a huge play in the second, chasing down Brandon Tanev to stop a possible breakaway, knocking the puck away before he got a shot on net. Tanev slid into Quick but no foul, no harm. The play was evident of his skill. Yesterday, he matched that with smarts and reactions on the ice.
4) Artemi Panarin made a great read to steal a clearing attempt. Then as he always seems to do, showed ridiculous patience, waiting for the right moment to pass the puck cross ice to the front of the net for the easy Laf tap in. As Vince Mercogliano noted, the Panarin-Vincent Trocheck-Lafrenière line was New York's only consistent offensive threat on Sunday, with stark advantages in shot attempts (22-10), shots on goal (10-4) and HD chances (4-2) while they were on the ice.
Contrast the above with the numbers for the new third line with Jonny Brodzinski having stepped in for the injured Filip Chytil. It's just one game but not great optics. If Chytil is out long term, Drury might have to bite the bullet and make a deal earlier than he would like. New York has a few possible center options, but none can drive play like Chytil did. Brodzinski's line with Will Cuylle and Kaapo Kakko were out-attempted (17-8) and outshot (8-4) on Sunday while allowing two HD chances without generating any of their own.
New York Rangers Blogger • 
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