After falling in overtime to Dallas in their previous game, the Rangers came through with a much-needed 3-2 win in overtime over the Devils on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden.
The Rangers were looking for some redemption against their rivals from New Jersey after being outscored 10-1 by the Devils in their previous two meetings.
They got it on Sam Carrick’s game-winner with 2:12 to go in OT off a feed from Reilly Smith.
Mika Zibanejad had a chance to win it earlier in OT, but couldn’t get off a good shot on a breakaway midway through the period.
The victory helped make up for a pair of ugly defeats to the Devils, the most recent of which was followed by the Devils mocking the Rangers on social media, comparing the Blueshirts to a dumpster fire.
With Igor Shersterkin back in net after missing the prior four games with an upper-body injury, the Rangers put up a much better fight on Thursday.
They entered having dropped 11 of their previous 15 games, as well as 17 of 23, while the Devils had lost four of five.
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The Rangers took the lead at 12:05 in the first period thanks to a power-play goal from Adam Fox, who wound up and fired it past Jacob Markstrom.
It was Fox’s first non-empty-net goal of the season and came off a faceoff win by Vincent Trocheck.
Shesterkin was strong, making 11 saves in the first period, although the Devils nearly took an early lead when Nico Hischier deflected a Luke Hughes shot and it got by Shesterkin, but hit off the crossbar.
The Rangers also killed a pair of penalties in the opening period after the Devils went 5-for-8 with the extra man in the first two meetings.
The Devils tied the game at 1-1 early in the first period when Jack Hughes scored his 16th goal of the season — and fifth in three games against the Rangers — knocking in a deflection off a shot by Brett Pesce at 4:03.
Shesterkin stopped a point-blank shot by Dawson Mercer later in the period, but Jesper Bratt beat Shesterkin at 8:28 to put the Devils up, 2-1.
That came after the Rangers blew a shorthanded breakaway that would have given them the lead midway through the second period, as Smith dropped it to Trocheck, whose shot missed the net.
The Rangers tied it at 2-2 at 17:13 of the second with their second power-play goal of the night, an Artemi Panarin goal that came off a rebound from a Zibanejad shot.
It was Panarin’s 17th goal of the season.
The Rangers had a flurry of activity in front of the Devils’ net early in the third and had the first eight shots of the period, but couldn’t capitalize.
Shesterkin stuffed Mercer on a shorthanded breakaway midway through the third.
The Devils controlled much of the action in the latter part of the third before Trocheck was stuffed late in the period.