RALEIGH, N.C. — It was only a day prior when Rangers coach Alain Vigneault made this prescient statement:
"Every night is not going to be a Picasso," he said.
Well, Saturday night at PNC Arena, the Rangers and Hurricanes were hardly able to put together a finger painting. In a sloppy and disjointed game that had little flow, the Rangers were barely able to sneak out with a win, a meek 3-2 shootout victory that extended their winning streak to five games.
"It's about finding ways to win," Vigneault had said before Mats Zuccarello got the game-winner in the first round of the skills competition, while Henrik Lundqvist made one save and watched as two Carolina shots went wide.
The Blueshirts had outplayed the Hurricanes all night, but still went into the final three minutes of regulation down 2-1. If it had ended like that, it would have painted Lundqvist as the goat, as he allowed a bad one-handed flip from Jeff Skinner to beat him 4:27 into the third period, just 26 seconds after J.T. Miller had tied the game for the Rangers with a power-play breakaway.
But Kevin Klein came to Lundqvist's rescue, getting a long seeing-eye wrist shot to beat Cam Ward at 17:37, tying it 2-2 and sending it to overtime.
The Rangers (16-10-4) had come in riding a four-game winning streak, as this was technically the end of a four-game road trip, one that started with the first franchise sweep of the three teams of Western Canada, the last of which was on Tuesday in Calgary. Lundqvist had started all three games, giving up just three goals total heading into this start, the first of a back-to-back, home-and-home that will end on Sunday at the Garden.
The Hurricanes (9-19-4) were coming off arguably their best performance of the season, a 4-1 win over the Maple Leafs on Thursday that broke a six-game losing streak.
"Toronto's coach said they were outworked during that game," Vigneault said. "One thing we know about Carolina is that they're going to come to play and they're going to work hard. We have to make sure we're ready."
The Rangers struggled to sustain any momentum in the scoreless second period, when they took two penalties to undercut any of the offensive pressure they did muster. Rick Nash was terrific again, killing penalties and creating chances, but the Blueshirts still went into the third period down 1-0.
"The way Rick is playing right now, he's playing really well defensively," said Nash's center, Derick Brassard, who returned after a two-game absence with the mumps. "Offensively, he's really strong on the puck."
Nash did what he could to get the Rangers on the board in the first, a period they dominated in possession but continually either passed on shot opportunities or had their shot attempts get stuffed by Ward.
The Rangers might have outshot the Hurricanes in the first 11-6, and out-attempted them 27-12, but went down 1-0 at the 7:20 mark when Kevin Hayes made a bad pass, Carl Hagelin was slow on a backcheck, and a Carolina 2-on-1 ended with Chris Terry getting his sixth of the season.
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