Artemi Panarin posted a goal and two assists — all in the third period — as the New York Rangers rallied to defeat the visiting Washington Capitals 5-2 Tuesday night.
This win ended a three-game Washington winning streak. The Caps had beaten the Rangers 5-4 on Sunday, but New York posted four goals in the third period that day before doing it again in this game.
New York lost two in a row before scoring five straight goals to win this contest.
The Rangers now have won four of six against the Caps this season.
The Caps have struggled on the power play of late. In fact, they were 0-for-16 against New York coming into this game before T.J. Oshie changed that quickly.
Oshie found open space between the circles and fired a shot past New York goalie Igor Shesterkin (30 saves) just 2 minutes, 23 seconds into the game. Nic Dowd, who has been strong on face-offs this season, gave Washington a 2-0 lead just 1:59 after that.
There was a big scrum in front of Shesterkin before Dowd finally poked it in. Officials reviewed the play, and it stood up for the two-goal lead.
The Rangers took a while to heat up on offense, but they did so in the second part of the first period. Filip Chytil cut the lead to 2-1 when he made a steal at his own blue line, came in alone on a breakaway, and beat Vitek Vanecek with 4:24 remaining.
The second period featured plenty of defense before Washington came up with some scoring chances late that Shesterkin turned away to keep the game at 2-1.
New York then tied it up on a slick passing play that left Kaapo Kakko with a wide-open net 4:10 into the final period. Panarin made a quick feed to Ryan Strome, who then found Kakko in front.
The Rangers took a 3-2 lead 2:22 later when Adam Fox took a pass from Panarin and beat Vanecek with a high back-hand shot. They made it 4-2 when Panarin notched his goal on a breakaway before Pavel Buchnevich added a short-handed empty-netter in the final minute.
–Field Level Media