Igor Shesterkin made 15 of his 29 saves in the third period to earn his 50th career victory Sunday night as the visiting New York Rangers recorded a 2-1 victory over the Ottawa Senators.
Shesterkin won for the 11th time in his past 13 starts and picked up his 24th win of the season. He also allowed two goals or less for the 15th time in 20 games and picked up his milestone win in his 79th career game, becoming the 14th goalie in NHL history to get at least 50 wins within his first 79 appearances.
Artemi Panarin scored a power-play goal and collected an assist for his 17th multi-point game this season as the Rangers improved to 4-0-1 in their past five games. Ryan Strome also scored and had the secondary assist on Panarin’s tiebreaking goal 9:14 in the second period as the Rangers picked up their 13th win when allowing the first goal.
Shesterkin also missed an empty-net goal with 1:15 remaining when the puck sailed slightly to the left and inches from the net, then made a glove save on Connor Brown’s shot with 58.5 seconds remaining.
Tim Stutzle scored for the Senators, who dropped their fifth straight home game and lost for the fifth time in seven games (2-4-1).
Ottawa goalie Filip Gustavsson made 31 saves in his first start since a 5-3 loss to the New York Islanders on Dec. 7.
Stutzle opened the scoring 4:52 into the game following a pair of New York turnovers when he ripped a wrist shot from the left faceoff circle over Shesterkin’s right shoulder.
Strome tied it over 2 1/2 minutes later when he put the rebound of Braden Schneider’s shot into the net after Panarin kept the puck alive in the offensive zone.
New York totaled 15 shots in the second and took its first lead since returning from the All-Star break when Panarin was wide open and blasted a shot from the right circle that sailed over Gustavsson’s left shoulder after getting a cross-ice pass from Mika Zibanejad.
After Panarin’s goal, Shesterkin protected the lead with a glove save on Artem Zub along with stops on Josh Brown and Nikita Zaitsev in the final three-plus minutes before his big final 20 minutes.
–Field Level Media
