Alexis Lafreniere is making a habit of lighting up Madison Square Garden, and on Tuesday night he did it twice more.
The Rangers’ winger scored two first-period goals, pushing his career-best scoring run to another level and powering New York to a 4-1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning. The victory kept the Rangers spotless at home at 5-0-0 and gave them another night where the Garden was all theirs from start to finish.
Lafreniere now has a goal in four straight games and a point in five straight, and his pair against Andrei Vasilevskiy moved him to the NHL lead with seven goals. Asked whether he’d ever been on a stretch like this, he kept it simple: “I don’t know,” he said when asked if he’d ever had a hot streak like this.
“Our team’s playing well. All four lines are playing good.
Right now we’re playing a complete team game so it’s fun to watch”
The Rangers didn’t need much more. Rookie Dylan Garand backed it up with 25 saves, winning his second straight start after stepping into the No. 1 role following Igor Shesterkin’s season-ending injury on Friday. Mika Zibanejad added a shorthanded empty-net goal with 2:44 left, and Will Cuylle chipped in with a deflection late in the second period that stretched the lead and took the pressure off.
Tampa Bay’s lone answer came from Zemgus Girgensons, but the Lightning never found a way to climb all the way back. Vasilevskiy stopped 18 shots and fell to 7-11-2 lifetime against the Rangers, his worst record against any opponent. The Lightning are now 4-2-0, with both losses coming against New York.
The night started fast and stayed that way in the opening period. Just 1:02 in, Tye Kartye worked the puck behind the Tampa Bay net and fed it into the slot, where Lafreniere grabbed it and snapped a shot past Vasilevskiy’s glove for a 1-0 lead.
New York kept pressing after that. On its first power play, after Lightning defenseman John Carlson was called for slashing at 3:03, the Rangers piled up four shots on goal. Adam Fox, who had the second assist on the opening goal, nearly made it 2-0 when his shot through traffic beat Vasilevskiy but struck the post after the penalty expired.
Lafreniere struck again at 12:47, turning a routine sequence into another clean finish. Kartye retrieved the puck to the left of his own net and lofted a clearing pass into the neutral zone.
Lafreniere gathered it, slipped past Anthony Cirelli and went in alone before beating Vasilevskiy with a wrist shot. That made it seven goals on the season and put him atop the league.
The tempo shifted a bit after Matt Rempe, back in the lineup for the first time since opening night, dropped the gloves with Jeffrey Viel at 14:17. Both players were hit with fighting majors, and Tampa Bay seemed to pick up some energy from the scrap.
Girgensons cashed in for the Lightning at 17:26, speeding down the right wing, moving in near the faceoff dot and beating Garand short side with a high wrist shot.
After that, New York had to grind a little. The Rangers didn’t get another shot on goal after Lafreniere’s second marker and left the first period trailing 9-8 in shots and 22-13 in attempts.
The second period was quiet for long stretches, with neither side doing much offensively through the first 18 minutes. New York went almost eight minutes without a shot on goal, but Cuylle changed the mood late. Sean Durzi stepped into a straightaway slap shot, Viel pushed Cuylle toward the slot, and Cuylle redirected the puck past Vasilevskiy at 18:26 for his third goal of the year.
That made it 3-1 after 40 minutes, and the Rangers handled the third period the way they’ve handled so many of their wins: with control, discipline and just enough bite to keep Tampa Bay from building anything dangerous.
Garand’s biggest moment came with 5:31 to go, when he denied Brayden Point on a spinning backhand from the slot. The stop drew chants of “Dy-lan” from the crowd of 17,076.
The Lightning got a late power play when Kartye was called for goaltender interference with 4:26 remaining, and coach Jon Cooper pulled Vasilevskiy to create a 6-on-4 setup. The Rangers survived it, then Zibanejad sealed things by burying the empty netter.
New York is now 6-2-0 as it heads out for two road games against Metropolitan Division opponents, starting Thursday at the New Jersey Devils and continuing Saturday against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
And back at the Garden, for one more night, the Rangers heard the kind of applause they barely got to enjoy there last season.
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