The New York Rangers took home the, 4-3, shootout victory on Wednesday night against the Boston Bruins at Madison Square Garden after allowing three unanswered goals in the second period.
New York mounted a comeback in the third period to tie the game, 3-3, then after an entertaining, high-action, three-on-three overtime period was not enough, the Rangers put it away in seven rounds of a shootout.
Alexandar Georgiev (7-9-0 record, 3.24 goals against average, .897 save percentage in 18 games played) made 27 saves on 30 shots faced for a .900 SV% in the shootout win as the Rangers improved to 9-1-0 in their last 10 regular season battles with Boston.
Bruins goaltender, Jaroslav Halak (13-9-4, 2.50 GAA, .918 SV% in 28 GP) recorded 36 saves on 39 shots against for a .923 SV% in the shootout loss and fell to 18-8-1 in his career against the Rangers.
Boston fell to 19-2-1 when leading after two periods this season and is now 2-0-1 so far in February.
The B’s fell to 29-17-8 (66 points) on the season, but improved to 3rd place in the Atlantic Division standings, while the Rangers improved to 23-22-8 (54 points), but remain in 7th place in the Metropolitan Division.
Bruins head coach, Bruce Cassidy, juggled his lines– reinserting Danton Heinen on the fourth line in place of David Backes, but later jumbling every forward line except for the Sean Kuraly–Noel Acciari–Chris Wagner trio.
By the end of the night, Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and Heinen made up the first line with Peter Cehlarik, David Krejci and David Pastrnak filling out the top-six forwards.
Joakim Nordstrom, Trent Frederic and Jake DeBrusk were relegated to fourth line duties with Nordstrom coming up strong in breaking up some crucial plays in overtime.
Cassidy kept his same defensive pairings from Tuesday, with John Moore, Backes and Steven Kampfer serving as the B’s healthy scratches on Wednesday.
Given it was the second night of back-to-back games, Halak got the start in goal over Tuukka Rask, who picked up the, 3-1, win against the New York Islanders on Tuesday.
Bergeron tripped up Rangers forward, Mika Zibanejad at 1:11 of the first period and handed New York their first power play opportunity of the night early in the action.
The Rangers did not convert on the ensuing skater advantage and followed up with a penalty of their own– Marc Staal for cross-checking Kuraly– at 13:39.
Boston did not succeed in their first skater advantage opportunity of the night.
Moments later, Zibanejad (22) let go of a snipe-shot from the point that had eyes and beat Halak to give New York the lead, 1-0.
Mats Zuccarello (21) recorded the only assist on Zibanejad’s goal at 17:45.
Will less than a minute remaining in the opening frame, Kuraly bumped into Boo Nieves while both players weren’t looking at each other and drew the ire of Jimmy Vesey at 19:08.
Vesey was dealt a cross-checking minor against Wagner, while Kuraly received a roughing minor against Nieves. Both penalties were handed out with 51 seconds remaining until the first intermission and would yield 4-on-4 action into the second period.
After one period of play, the Rangers led, 1-0, on the scoreboard and in shots on goal, 12-9.
Boston maintained the advantage in blocked shots (5-4) and takeaways (6-3), while New York led in giveaways (5-4), hits (15-10) and face-off win percentage (55-46).
Both clubs were 0/1 on the power play entering the 2nd period.
Kevan Miller cross-checked Vladislav Namestnikov at 2:16 of the second period, but the Rangers didn’t convert on the ensuing skater advantage.
Cassidy restructured his lines almost midway through the middle frame and it provided instant results.
On a face-off in the offensive zone, Marchand worked the puck back to Matt Grzelcyk for the shot towards the goal that was tipped by Heinen (7) for his first goal in his first game back since being a healthy scratch for the last few games.
Grzelcyk (13) and Marchand (41) tallied the assists on Heinen’s goal at 10:37 of the second period and the game was tied, 1-1.
Just 72 seconds later, Pastrnak (31) redirected a pass from Krejci behind Georgiev to give the Bruins their first lead of the night, 2-1, at 11:49 of the middle frame.
Krejci (31) and Miller (5) were tabbed with the primary and secondary assists, respectively.
Less than 30 seconds later, Bergeron took his second trip to the penalty box– this time for slashing Zuccarello– at 12:12.
Shortly after New York’s power play expired, Tony DeAngelo was guilty of tripping Bergeron at 14:22, resulting in a power play for Boston.
Less than a minute into the skater advantage, Bergeron (19) tipped a shot from Torey Krug past the right leg of the Rangers goaltender as Georgiev attempted to make a butterfly save.
Krug (31) and Marchand (42) had the assists on Bergeron’s power play goal at 15:11 of the second period and the B’s led, 3-1.
Late in the period, Brandon Carlo and Zuccarello got tangled up with each other and received matching roughing minors at 16:34.
Entering the dressing room after 40 minutes of action, Boston led, 3-1, on the scoreboard, but trailed New York, 22-20, in shots on goal. The Bruins did, however, lead in second period shots on goal alone– with a slight advantage– 11-10.
The Bruins led in blocked shots (7-6), while the Rangers led in just about everything else, including takeaways (10-9), giveaways (12-6) and hits (30-16) entering the final frame of regulation.
Both teams went 50-50 in face-off win% after two periods and the Rangers were 0/3 on the power play entering the third period. Boston was 1/2 on the skater advantage.
Kevin Hayes (12) made it a one-goal game at 9:24 of the third period.
Pavel Buchnevich received a pass up the middle and threw a shot on goal that Vesey chased down the rebound for in order to send the puck to Hayes for the goal.
Vesey (14) and Buchnevich (8) had the assists and the Rangers trailed, 3-2.
Charlie McAvoy took a horrendous boarding penalty at 12:05 of the third period. It was horrendous, because it ultimately proved costly.
Filip Chytil (10) pocketed a rebound that Halak failed to control after Buchnevich fired the initial shot.
Buchnevich (9) and DeAngelo (10) had the assists on Chytil’s power play goal for New York at 12:42 and the Rangers tied the game, 3-3.
Through 60 minutes of regulation, both teams were still tied, 3-3, on the scoreboard, despite the Rangers leading in shots on goal (33-29), blocked shots (10-9), giveaways (20-11) and hits (41-25).
Boston, in the meantime, escaped regulation with the lead in takeaways (13-11) and face-off win% (53-47).
The Rangers finished the night 1/4 on the power play, while the Bruins went 1/2 as no penalties were called in the five-minute, three-on-three overtime period.
Cassidy started Pastrnak, Krejci and Krug in overtime for the Bruins as both teams got off to a frantic pace, leading to chance after chance and save after save.
Eventually, both teams attempted their fair share of trick shots and odd banks off of pads, sticks and whatever they could find to try to will the puck into the twine.
But, Georgiev and Halak stood tall, leading to a shootout after five minutes of overtime was not enough.
As an aside, the Rangers had six shots on goal in overtime, compared to Boston’s one shot on net (officially).
New York finished the night leading in shots on goal (39-30), blocked shots (12-10), giveaways (21-11) and hits (42-26), while the Bruins led in face-off win% (55-45).
In the shootout, David Quinn elected to have his home team Rangers shoot first on Halak, but Zuccarello was denied by the outer post.
Cassidy sent out Cehlarik as his first shooter, but Georgiev made the save.
Kevin Shattenkirk was denied by Halak, as Pastrnak failed to muster a shot off his stick in the second round of the shootout.
Zibanejad deked and roofed the puck to give New York the, 1-0, advantage in the third round of the shootout, but was matched by Marchand’s nifty dangle-turned-five hole squib-shot to even it, 1-1, after three rounds.
Hayes was turned aside by Halak and McAvoy had the puck poke checked away by the Rangers netminder in the fourth round.
Chytil rang the post and DeBrusk’s shot was saved by Georgiev in the fifth round.
Vesey nailed the crossbar and Heinen was stopped in the sixth round.
Finally, DeAngelo mustered enough stick work on the puck to get Halak to commit to a sprawling position, as DeAngelo then elevated the puck for what became the game-winning shootout goal in the seventh round after Krejci fired his shot wide.
New York improved to 6-2 in shootouts on the season, while Boston fell to 1-2 past overtime this season.
The Rangers had won, 4-3, officially on the scoreboard after the shootout and stole the extra point past regulation.
Call it Adam McQuaid‘s revenge or whatever, but Wednesday night’s game was the 54th game of the regular season for Boston.
The Bruins venture back home for a three-game homestand at TD Garden starting Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. ET with a matchup against the Los Angeles Kings.
Boston will honor Bergeron prior to puck drop for participating in his 1,000th career regular season NHL game on Tuesday.
Sunday afternoon, the B’s take on the Colorado Avalanche, then wrap things up at home with a tilt against the Chicago Blackhawks next Tuesday.
Cassidy’s crew swings through the three teams in California, the Vegas Golden Knights and St. Louis Blues on a roadtrip from Feb. 15th through the 23rd.
Down the Frozen River 
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