Detroit @ New York preview
Madison Square Garden
Last Meeting ( Feb 23, 2023 ) NY Rangers 1, Detroit 4
The best news for the New York Rangers occurred around midday when Igor Shesterkin took the ice for practice on Monday.
It does not mean Shesterkin's minor soreness is gone but seemed to be a signal he could start Tuesday when the Rangers host the Detroit Red Wings.
Shesterkin was not scheduled to play and the Rangers recalled Louis Dominigue for Saturday's 5-4 shootout loss at Minnesota.
Jimmy Vesey, Artemi Panarin and Erik Gustafsson scored in a span of 3:17 before backup Jonathan Quick allowed four straight goals. The Rangers were able to salvage the point when Chris Kreider scored his eighth goal in the third period.
Blowing the lead saw the end of New York's six-game winning streak that elevated them to the early lead atop the Metropolitan Division. The last game of the winning streak was a 2-1 victory over the visiting Carolina Hurricanes that proved costly when defenseman Adam Fox and Filip Chytil were injured.
Fox was injured in a collision with Sebastian Aho and Chytil was injured in a collision with Jesper Fast. Chytil will miss at least a week and was replaced by Jonny Brodzinski while Fox will miss at least 10 games and was replaced by Connor Mackey.
"Everyone's going to have to step up [into] a little bit more of a role," Rangers captain Jacob Trouba said. "Missing some big players. Every team goes through it throughout the year, so now it's our turn."
Detroit is off to a strong start after enduring seven straight losing seasons. A year ago, the Red Wings were 7-3-2 after 12 games before losing 13 of their next 19, and this year they won five of their first six games.
Since its 6-2 win over the Calgary Flames on Oct. 22, Detroit is 2-3-1 in its last six games, though its last victories featured big comebacks. The Red Wings scored three goals in the third period to get an overtime win against the New York Islanders on Oct. 30 and did it again to earn a 5-4 home win over the Boston Bruins on Saturday night.
Against the Islanders, the Red Wings scored three times in a span of 3:48 and Saturday it took them 3:44 to score three goals. David Perron scored the tiebreaking goal and added two assists while Dylan Larkin scored the tying goal against Boston.
The last two comebacks gave the Red Wings an NHL-leading 20 goals in the third period heading into a matchup with an opponent who has allowed six goals in the third.
"It's big for sure," Perron said. "Now we head into New York and can start changing the narrative of the last few games here for us. We got to show we can do it every night."
Saturday was also Detroit's fifth comeback win and fourth when allowing the game's first goal, two areas coach Derek Lalonde hopes his team improves upon.
"It's a very good sign, but not a recipe for success," Lalonde said. "We played a really good 60 minutes but find ourselves down in the third. We've got to start flipping some of these decent starts to leads. We're not good enough to be chasing games all the time."
--Field Level Media