TAMPA — Credit belongs where credit is due, so go ahead and allow the Rangers to revel in this one a bit.
With a handful of positives to take away from the 4-3 win over the Lightning at the Tampa Bay Times Forum on Sunday night, the biggest fact is that they didn't allow an easy two points slip away. It was utterly apparent from the drop of the puck that the Lightning were still reeling from Saturday night's 2-1 shootout loss to the visiting Canadiens, but the Rangers managed to push the play and convert on the ample opportunity given to them.
"Right now," coach Alain Vigneault said before the game, "we're playing real good hockey."
That might be a stretch, and was proven to be utterly incorrect with some lackadaisical effort in the third period, yet at least they played well enough to beat the Lightning (23-12-4), who had won five in a row before the three-day Christmas break, which ended with the extra-long game against Montreal.
What the Rangers really should leave with that they saw glimpses of dominance from Rick Nash, they got a solid performance from goalie Henrik Lundqvist after he sat for three straight, and the supporting cast of Mats Zuccarello, Benoit Pouliot and Chris Kreider – just to the name three – was impressive. Despite Friday's 3-2 loss to the Capitals in Washington, the Rangers are now 4-2-1 in their past seven.
"We played a real strong game in Washington, our 5-on-5 game was real good, except we weren't able to beat their goaltender," Vigneault said. "We did a lot of right things we did to win."
The Lightning got close when Valtteri Filppula tipped in a long shot to cut the Rangers lead to 4-3 with just over 11 minutes remaining in regulation. But the Rangers (19-19-2) managed to clamp down and finish the game off, with Lundqvist making 15 of his 37 saves in the third period.
The Rangers took hold of the lead in the second period, when they scored back-to-back power-play goals to finish the period up, 4-2. The first came from Kreider at the 4:35 mark as he dashed by defenseman Victor Hedman and netted a backhand for his team-leading 10th goal of the season. That was followed three minutes later when Pouliot tipped one in from in front for his seventh of the year, the fourth goal for him in the past five games, which also extended his career-high points streak to seven games.
The first period was a back-and-forth affair, with the Rangers getting on the board first, on a tap-in goal from Nash 4:30 in. When Nash converted the great cross-ice pass from Derek Stepan, he broke a seven-game goalless streak.
The lead didn't last very long, as six minutes later, J.T. Miller took a hooking penalty and Tyler Johnson scored on the ensuing power play, the shot going off Derek Dorsett's stick and over Lundqvist's right shoulder. The Lightning then took a 2-1 lead six minutes after that, as Ondrej Palat corralled a juicy Lundqvist rebound and roofed a falling-away wrist shot off to make it 2-1.
The Blueshirts did come back to tie it just before the period ended, waiting just eight seconds into a power play until Zuccarello banked on in off defenseman Radko Gudas, leaving the scoreboard at 2-2 after 20 minutes.
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