With the New York Rangers in dire need of a win, Igor Shesterkin turned in a spectacular performance on Friday. The goalie made 41 saves to end his team’s three-game losing streak in a 3-1 victory against the host Dallas Stars.
Vincent Trocheck had a goal and an assist while Reilly Smith and Chris Kreider also scored for New York.
Roope Hintz scored and Jake Oettinger stopped 27 shots for the Stars, who took their second consecutive loss to finish 3-3-0 on their homestand.
Shesterkin, the Rangers’ top goalie, entered play having lost three of his past four starts. However, the 28-year-old Russian was also in the middle of a larger slump. The Friday win marked the first time he allowed one or fewer goals since a 2-1 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Nov. 1.
In between, Shesterkin allowed 48 goals in 15 games (3.49 goals-against average), posting an .895 save percentage and a 5-10-0 record.
It also was the fourth time this season he recorded 40 or more saves.
Shesterkin teamed up with the Rangers’ penalty-killing unit to deny the Stars on all of the host’s seven power-play opportunities, stopping 21 shots with his team short-handed. The seven power-play chances not only represented a season high for the Stars, it also was the most the Rangers allowed this season.
The stops included a five-minute major against Matt Rempe, whom the Rangers recalled from Hartford earlier this week. The 6-foot-9 forward also received a game misconduct for elbowing Dallas’ Miro Heiskanen with 12:47 left in regulation. Shesterkin stopped nine shots on that power play alone.
Hintz put Dallas up less than two minutes into the game on a goal assisted by Nils Lundkvist and Jason Robertson.
Smith tied the game nearly nine minutes later on a short-handed breakaway that started when the puck skipped over Thomas Harley’s stick at the blueline in the Stars’ attacking zone.
Trocheck put the Rangers up with 4:40 left in the first period. Adam Fox and Artemi Panarin, New York’s leading scorer who returned to the lineup after missing two games with an upper-body injury, got the assists.
Kreider found the empty net with 2:06 left to finish the scoring and end his seven-game goal drought.
–Field Level Media
