RANGERS NASH BLUE JACKETS IN OT

     VERSUS    

NEW YORK RANGERS POST-GAME NOTES
February 19, 2012 (Game 57, Home Game 28)
Madison Square Garden — New York, NY

                                               1st   2nd   3rd   OT   Final
Columbus Blue Jackets          0      1        1       0      2
New York Rangers                 1      1        0       1      3

Team Notes:

• The Rangers defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets, 3-2, in overtime tonight at Madison Square Garden for their fifth win and the last six games, and are now 9-2-1 in their last 12 games.
• New York has posted a record of 38-14-5 (81 pts) on the season, including a 19-7-2 mark at home.

• Tonight’s win was the Rangers’ first against the Blue Jackets at Madison Square Garden since a 7-4 victory on Nov. 23, 2009.
• New York increased their lead over Boston atop the Eastern Conference standings to nine points, and are now within three points of Detroit for first in the league overall.
• The Blueshirts’ 19-7-2 (40 pts) mark at MSG is their best start at home through 28 games since 1995-96 (19-3-6, 44 pts).
• The Rangers’ .711 win% through 57 games is the team’s best start in 39 years, when the 1972-73 Blueshirts began the season with a 38-14-5 record (.711 win%), and is tied as the second best start in franchise history.
• With the win, Head Coach John Tortorella registered his 132nd victory as Rangers’ head coach to move past Herb Brooks into sole possession of sixth place on the Rangers’ all-time coaching wins list.

Player Notes:

• Henrik Lundqvist made 21 saves to improve to 28-11-4 overall, including a 14-6-2 mark at home.  He is now 8-1-0 with a 1.20 GAA, .955 SV% and three shutouts in his last nine games.
• Derek Stepan recorded the game-winning goal 22 seconds into overtime, and was credited with three takeaways in 20:29 of ice time to earn third star honors.  He has now tallied seven points (two goals, five assists) in the last eight games.  The goal was Stepan’s first career overtime game-winning goal.
• Brad Richards notched the game’s opening goal at 17:49 of the first period and registered five shots on goal in 20:56 of ice time.  He has now tallied six points (two goals, four assists) in the last six games.
• Artem Anisimov tallied a goal and registered three shots on goal in 18:00 of ice time to earn second star honors.  He has now recorded seven points (four goals, three assists) in the last eight games, and the Rangers improved to 16-2-2 when he tallies a point.
• Michael Del Zotto tallied two assists, including the primary assist on Stepan’s overtime, game-winning goal, was credited with three takeaways and posted a game-high, plus two rating in a team-high, 25:14 of ice time.  He has now recorded nine points (two goals, seven assists) in the last 11 games, including six assists in the last six contests.
• Marian Gaborik registered an assist on Stepan’s overtime, game-winning goal, and recorded five shots on goal in 21:16 of ice time.  The assist was Gaborik’s 50th point of the season, marking the seventh time in his 11-year career, and second time in three seasons as a Ranger, he has reached that plateau.
• Carl Hagelin tallied the primary assist on Richards’ first period goal and logged 19:09 of ice time.  He has now recorded 10 points (two goals, eight assists) in the last 14 games.
• Dan Girardi recorded an assist and was credited with a game-high, four blocked shots in the contest.  It is the 11th time this season Girardi has recorded four or more blocked shots in a game.
• John Mitchell registered an assist on Anisimov’s goal at 13:13 of the second period.  Mitchell is now two games shy of 200 career NHL appearances.
• Ryan Callahan registered a game-high, six shots on goal, was credited with three hits and logged 22:34 of ice time to capture first star honors.

Post-Game Quotes:

John Tortorella…

• “I thought we got underneath the hash marks and fore-checked, kept the puck and developed some scoring chances.  We played better territorially than we have the past couple of games and hopefully we can build off of it.”

Ryan Callahan…

• “They’re a talented team, they’ve got a lot of skill up front. They came at us pretty hard.  I thought Mason played well in net.  Anything could happen any night in this league, and every team is good, so it was important for us to come in and take this seriously and I thought we did that.  I think we wanted to focus on our start.”

Marc Staal…

• “They have been playing some pretty good hockey. We knew coming in that they would be playing hard in the back-to-back. We wanted to come out with a good start like we did and I felt like we continued to play hard. We got in a little penalty trouble but other than that I felt like we did a pretty good job for 60 plus (minutes).”

Michael Del Zotto (On the game winning goal)…

• “I put it out front to Step (Derek Stepan), it squeezed out to Gaby (Marian Gaborik) and he made a great play faking the shot and (Steve) Mason came all the way out. Step put himself in a great spot and I slid it over to him and it was an empty net. It was great puck movement.”

Team Schedule:

• The Rangers will return to action when they face-off against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday, Feb. 21, at CONSOL Energy Center (7:00 p.m.), in an Atlantic Division match-up.  The game will be televised live on MSG Network and can be heard on 1050 ESPN Radio.