1-0-0

Buffalo is up first and that is going to be a statement game.

Me, last week

And I was right. With a 5-1 win, the New York Rangers showed up ready to play as a team. They must have worked tirelessly on every aspect of the game in the last week because they were nothing but impressive. All the way down the roster, everyone played well.

Alexis Lafreniere kicked off the scoring just 4 minutes into the game when Panarin got his own rebound and made a sweet pass to a wide-open Lafreniere. There’s been a lot of furrowed brows pointed at him for months now and there’s no better way to show off than to shut everyone down. He also had a phenomenal steal that let Panarin score his own beauty (last I saw Alexis did not get an assist credit for it).

The first period was complete domination by the Rangers. Kreider with his patented deflection for his first goal. In the third period, he got another one short-handed after a tremendous hustle from Zibanejad (3 assists for the night!). The second period was terrific until the end where Buffalo got some momentum with a goal at the end and then went on the power play.

The Rangers’ penalty kill did their job to get the team clean into the third period. It got really hairy when the Rangers got two more penalty kills quickly. It cut their own power play short by like 50 seconds. The second penalty came with 12 seconds left so that meant a no-let’s-avoid-this-please 5 on 3.

And what we got to see was nothing but heart and grit to snuff Buffalo’s power play. Buffalo gave it their all but the Rangers blocking shots stopped their best chances. I was having flashbacks to the John Tortorella era where he wanted everyone to be a human meat shield health be damned. It was wild and if this is the sign of things to come, Rangers Nation is here for it.

Will Cuylle had a hell of a game! He did his absolute best to make the team in training camp and he showed everyone tonight that it wasn’t a mistake or a fluke. He was flying on offense, and a PITA on defense. Really impressive. Our new D man Erik Gustafsson made his presence known too. I have a feeling I’ll be writing about him a lot too so I better memorize how to spell his last name. Shout out to Nick Bonino on his hard-nosed playing too. He made a big difference on face-offs and defense. Trouba crushed it too! Happy to see our Captain smiling out there. The only new guy I didn’t really notice was Blake Wheeler.

Speaking of face-offs, they said that was one area–along with special teams, which showed–coach Laviolette focused they worked on a lot. The wingers were told to push in to help when a face-off wasn’t won and it worked. Face off win percentage was up, which is rare. And when they didn’t win, the new system frequently worked so they weren’t skating around like chickens with their heads cut off for half the night. That added support meant Buffalo didn’t always control the puck for long when they did win it. One final checkmark for the night was Shesterkin winning his 100th NHL game.

Really promising stuff. If they can keep gelling as a team with the new play system and stay healthy, the Rangers are a huge threat to the entire league. This could be a wild season. The games versus the Devils, Islanders, and Penguins are going to be insane.