The New York Rangers managed to stay afloat in the ever-competitive Eastern Conference wild card race with a 5-4 overtime victory over the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday.
It was a tit-for-tat contest where one goal would be answered through all three periods, featuring plenty of common holes in the Rangers' game this season: costly turnovers, sloppy passing and incompetence on the power play.
The two points were secured off the stick of Vincent Trocheck, who deflected Artemi Panarin's pass in through the backdoor.
Panarin joked afterward about his decision to pass the puck to Trocheck despite fans chanting for him to shoot the puck himself.
"The whole rink said, ‘Shooooooot!’ They know better," Panarin told Vince Mergocliano of USA Today.
Panarin, who is the team's leading point scorer with 82 on the year, churns out most of his production on playmaking. 48 of those points are assists.
The Rangers offense has been wildly inconsistent in 2024-25. Its power play dropped from No. 3 overall in the previous season to No. 27 with seven games remaining.
“It’s moved around quite a bit, it’s not like we’re sitting here stuck on one thing,” head coach Peter Laviolette said about the power play to the New York Post. “We’re moving it around, trying different options and we work on it in practice. It’s an opportunity to make a difference in a game like tonight and we’ll continue to look at it and look at the personnel that we have and what we can do to make that effective inside of a game like tonight.”
“[Special teams has] been a real positive for us for a long time, but we’re in a little bit of a funk right now with it and we’ll have to get out of it.”
-1741666059-q80.webp "Chris Kreider Surges Back Into Prominent Role")
