Igor Shesterkin made 17 of his 31 saves in the first period as the host New York Rangers recovered from a slow start and beat the Arizona Coyotes 4-1 Sunday night to snap a three-game home losing streak.
Barclay Goodrow and Adam Fox scored 78 seconds apart late in the second period. Chris Kreider added a power-play goal early in the third as the Rangers improved their home record to 4-3-3. New York also improved to 13-1-2 in the past 16 meetings with Arizona.
Ryan Carpenter also scored his first goal since signing with the Rangers in the offseason while Fox collected one assist.
Shesterkin gave the Rangers a chance in the opening period when the Coyotes took the game’s first 10 shots and outshot New York 17-4. He made nine saves in the second and five more in the third to earn the No. 1 star of the game honors.
Shesterkin also helped the Rangers hold the Coyotes scoreless on their first five power plays before Clayton Keller scored midway through the third.
Arizona fell to 3-2-0 on its 14-game road trip. The Coyotes are on the lengthy trip while a locker room annex is completed at their temporary new home, Mullett Arena, on the Arizona State University campus.
Arizona goalie Connor Ingram made 23 saves.
A little over a minute after Shesterkin made a glove save on Keller during an Arizona power play, New York’s offense came to life with 4:55 left in the second.
Goodrow scored the first goal after two miscues by Arizona defensemen. In the right corner, Juuso Valimaki made a blind pass that banked off Dylan Guenther’s skate and caromed to Goodrow, whose wrist shot from the middle of the slot sailed by Ingram.
The Rangers took a 2-0 lead by staying with their offense after Arizona blocked a shot. Fox cycled around the net, stripped the puck from Barrett Hayton after a shot by Filip Chytil was blocked by Travis Boyd, and flipped a wrister over Ingram’s glove.
The lead reached 3-0 4:39 into the third when Mika Zibanejad’s pass hit the shaft of Kreider’s stick and deflected into the net. Arizona ended the shutout bid a little under four minutes later when Keller slid a wrister from the right faceoff circle over Shesterkin’s right pad for Arizona’s 16th power-play tally, but Carpenter scored on a tip-in with 8:17 left.
–Field Level Media