Make that six straight wins for the New York Rangers, who have yet to lose a game this post-season after sweeping the Washington Capitals in Round 1 and now taking a 2-0 lead over the Carolina Hurricanes thanks to Tuesday’s 4-3 double-overtime victory.
While Tuesday saw the Presidents’ Trophy winners trail for the first time in these playoffs, twice finding themselves one goal behind Carolina within the first two periods, neither lead lasted long.
And despite excellent performances from Jake Guentzel, who scored twice, and a barrage of shots from Carolina’s offence and clutch saves from Frederik Andersen, the Hurricanes couldn’t come away with the win.
The Rangers are off to a pretty historic start to the post-season, and are surely hoping history repeats itself…
Here’s a collection of our top takeaways from Game 2.
Unshakeable Shesterkin stumps Hurricanes
You can have one of the top offences in the league, with one of the highest shot rates of the regular season. You can have one of the hottest power plays, with some of the sharpest shooters and speediest skaters. You can be playing some of your best hockey of the post-season. But none of that means much when you run into a hot goaltender.
That’s exactly what happened to the Hurricanes on Tuesday night against Igor Shesterkin and the Rangers.
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After letting three pucks past him in the first 38:18 of the matchup, Shesterkin shut the door for the next 49:06 as the Rangers tied things up early in the third period to force overtime and then finally finished on top 7:24 into the second OT frame.
Through 87:24 of hockey, Shesterkin faced 57 shots and turned away 54. It was his second highest shot total faced in the post-season, and highest since the Pittsburgh Penguins fired 83 his way in a triple-OT Game 1 matchup in the first round of the 2022 playoffs.
This also marked his 29th consecutive playoff game allowing three or fewer goals — a streak that also dates back to that 2022 first-round series against the Penguins. According to Hockey Reference, only Shesterkin’s backup, Jonathan Quick, has a longer such streak — he went 34 straight playoff games without allowing more than three goals during his tenure with the Los Angeles Kings.
Trocheck’s goal streak continues as Rangers stay perfect in playoffs
After wrapping up his most productive regular season to date, New York’s Vincent Trocheck is already hitting career post-season highs just six games into the playoffs.
Trocheck has registered at least one point in all six of New York’s games this post-season, with four multi-point games to his name and a remarkable five-game goal streak — including Tuesday’s game-winner in double overtime. He now has 10 points this post-season, which ties his career best tallied during his 2021-22 run with the Hurricanes.
The power-play marker was his fourth this post-season, and New York’s second scored with the man advantage on Tuesday night after Chris Kreider tied things up in the third frame on the power play. The Rangers’ power play is operating at an impressive 40 per cent right now through six games, second only to Edmonton this post-season. They have more PP goals than any other team in the playoffs, with 10.
In addition to securing the Game 2 victory and giving the Rangers a 2-0 series lead, Trocheck’s game-winner also earned him a place in the franchise’s history books.
Just, uh, don’t ask him how Tuesday’s goal unfolded.
“I couldn’t tell you what happened,” Trocheck said post-game. “It went in.”
Lafrenière shines on lottery night
It’s only fitting that on the very same evening the NHL’s Draft Lottery balls landed in San Jose’s favour, awarding them the right to select first overall this June, we should see another lottery-pick player have himself a career-highlight night. Rangers forward Alexis Lafrenière, selected first overall in 2020, scored his team’s first two goals Tuesday night — his first goals of these playoffs, and his first career multi-goal post-season game.
The 22-year-old is having a really strong post-season, registering at least one point in five of six post-season games so far this spring. He’s been held off the scoresheet just once — Game 3 against Washington — and collected five assists so far.