The Rangers have spent the first week of the season looking like a team that knows exactly how it wants to play.
Sunday’s 4-2 win over the Utah Mammoth at the Garden gave them three straight victories and pushed them to 3-1, with the early signs pointing in a pretty clear direction: they’re getting pucks deep, limiting odd-man rushes, blocking shots and stacking points. They’ve already collected six points, and for now they sit at the top of the league.
That’s the kind of start Mike Sullivan was asked about last week, when the schedule was already squeezing the Rangers with five games in eight nights. He wondered aloud whether that early grind could actually help a group trying to find chemistry.
“I'll tell you after the fifth game,’’ he said. “Maybe when we come out of this, and if we play well, we build on it, we get some momentum, the answer is yeah, it helped us. Right?’’
So far, the answer looks like it could be yes.
Vladislav Gavrikov set the tone by scoring late in the first period for his first goal of the season, then later helped set up J.T. Miller’s eventual winner midway through the third. The Rangers also did the kind of dirty work that usually keeps a coach happy: they blocked 22 shots and repeatedly made Utah earn everything.
“We’ve got to keep building,’’ Gavrikov said. “The seasons are long, obviously, but I mean, you know how our league works; you can lose the (battle) within the first few months, so we’ve got to be on our toes, and just get ready for next one.’’
The game had the feel of a team that can win in different ways. Utah, which had won its first two games, tied it in the second on Nick Schmaltz’s power-play goal. But the Rangers answered in the third with goals from Gabe Perreault and Miller, then Eeli Tolvanen added an empty-netter for the second straight game.
It was also the second straight night the Rangers had to fight through fatigue to defend a lead, and they did it against a Utah club that skates well and came in on the second night of a back-to-back.
Sean Durzi, a former Mammoth player who was one of the pieces coming back to the Rangers in the Trocheck trade, said the group is already showing the kind of commitment that travels.
“We've bought into a brand of hockey that it takes to win,’’ he said. “I think you see it.
Guys are blocking shots. Guys are laying hits.
I mean, I probably didn't have my best night tonight, and I still found ways to make it hard on their top guys myself. Whether it's finishing a check on a guy, or boxing out, or finding my ‘B’ game.”
Igor Shesterkin was part of the night’s lighter moment, and the Garden crowd made sure he knew it. After scoring the first goal of his professional career in his previous game, he was greeted by chants of “Shooooot!’’
whenever the puck came near him, even when the net was not empty. On Tolvanen’s empty-net goal, Shesterkin handled the puck near the goal line, drew the chants again, and instead passed up the boards to Will Cuylle.
Cuylle moved it to the red line and sent a shot that was deflected by a Utah player before reaching Tolvanen, who finished it. Shesterkin picked up an assist.
The next time the puck found him, he did let it go, but a Utah defenseman got back in time to knock it away.
“I thought he was going to score again,’’ Sullivan said with a smile. “I think they must have pre-scouted it, because their defenseman retreated.’’
Sullivan was just as quick to credit the bigger picture as the highlight-reel stuff. He said the group is paying the price in the right areas and growing together game by game.
“I just like how we're coming together as a group,’’ he said. “It's a good feeling we have.
We've won a couple of games. These guys are playing hard.
They're paying the price to win, whether it be blocking shots, or winning puck battles, things of that nature. But I'm really excited and couldn't be more proud of the guys just for the team game that we're building.’’
The one concern came early, when fourth-line center Joe Veleno left with a lower-body injury. If he has to miss time, the Rangers will have to find a way to keep things rolling without an important penalty killer and faceoff man who has been averaging just under 15 minutes per game.
And that’s the flip side of a hot start: it only takes one injury, one rough stretch, one small break in the rhythm for all the good vibes to shift.
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