Shesterkin makes 31 saves, Rangers defeat Coyotes

NEW YORK -- Igor Shesterkin made 31 saves, and the New York Rangers overcame a sluggish start to defeat the Arizona Coyotes 4-1 at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

Adam Fox had a goal and an assist, and Barclay Goodrow, Chris Kreider and Ryan Carpenter also scored for the Rangers (8-6-3), who have won two of three since losing three in a row (0-2-1).
"Basically, half the game we didn't play good hockey, but we found a way to stick with it," Rangers captain Jacob Trouba said. "I hate to sit here and say, 'Hurrah, we won,' when we didn't play that well and after games we lose we play better.
"You've got to stay levelheaded with your game and over the course of the season things are going to work out. That's the belief you've got to have that things kind of work themselves out over the long term, but that's not a recipe we want to rely on, not getting pucks to the net, not shooting pucks, not having good starts."

Clayton Keller scored to extend his point streak to five games (three goals, four assists), and Connor Ingram made 23 saves for the Coyotes (6-8-1), who lost 4-2 to the New Jersey Devils on Saturday and are 3-2-0 through the first five games of its NHL record-tying 14-game road trip.
Arizona entered the game third in the NHL on the power play (31.3 percent) but was 1-for-6 against New York.
"The power play has been really good, it's not a secret," Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said. "Tonight, it did not happen. The guys will make the adjustment and we'll bounce back. But our play at 5-on-5, we started the season giving [up] 45 shots a night and now we're a team that is way more stingy. We're a team that had a tough time putting 20 [shots] on net early in the season and now we get to 30 or we're around 30 and we have more volume and more O-zone possession. We're getting better."

Arizona held a 17-4 advantage in shots in the first period, with New York not getting one on goal until defenseman Ryan Lindgren's chance on a 2-on-1 at 12:29.
The Rangers said they also did not feel like they had their skating legs or much energy in the first half of the second period. They had one shot on goal in the first eight minutes, but Shesterkin's 20 saves had them still in a 0-0 game.
"I felt not good before the game, but when I face 15 or so shots in the first period I woke up and tried to play my game," Shesterkin said. "When I face a lot of shots, I feel more confident. I keep in the game and I started to see all the shots."

New York killed two penalties within a span of 5:02 midway through the second period when Carpenter was called for interference at 9:49 and forward Vincent Trocheck took an interference penalty at 12:51. The Rangers limited the Coyotes to two shots on goal combined and pushed for offense, getting 2-on-1 rushes on each penalty kill turned away by Ingram.
"I'm pretty happy with that because before that we were pretty stale and slow, and that PK gave us a good boost," Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said. "That was the best chances and that's really why I think our team changed from that point on."
Goodrow scored 14 seconds after Trocheck's penalty expired to give New York a 1-0 lead at 15:05. He connected from the high slot after Arizona defenseman Juuso Valimaki played the puck from the corner to the middle of the ice, where it went off forward Dylan Guenther's stick before Ingram poked it directly to the Rangers forward.
"We did pretty much everything we wanted until we started to get power plays," Tourigny said. "We lost the momentum on our power play."
Fox made it 2-0 at 16:23 when he got the puck in the left face-off circle, played it through Coyotes forward Barrett Hayton's feet between the circles, and scored glove-side with a wrist shot.

"Especially when you think you're in charge, you're dictating what you want, then two kind of, I wouldn't say lucky bounces but unfortunate [bounces], and 2-0, bang, and the crowd gets going," Coyotes forward Nick Ritchie said. "It's not easy to come back."
Kreider extended it to 3-0 with a power-play goal at 4:39 of the third period, scoring on a net-front redirection of Mika Zibanejad's slap pass.
Keller cut it to 3-1 with a power-play goal at 8:33, but Carpenter restored the Rangers to a three-goal lead with a deflection of Braden Schneider's point shot at 11:43. It was Carpenter's first goal with New York.
"We just found a way," Gallant said. "It was an important win. It would have been a tough loss, but it was an important win for us."
NOTES:Coyotes forward Travis Boyd had an assist to extend his point streak to five games (one goal, four assists). … Kreider has 10 points (five goals, five assists) in his past nine games. … Fox extended his point streak to six games (two goals, seven assists) and his assist streak to five games.