Tarasov gets first NHL win for Blue Jackets against Rangers

NEW YORK -- Daniil Tarasov made 30 saves for his first NHL win, and the Columbus Blue Jackets defeated the New York Rangers 5-1 at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

"It was amazing," Tarasov said. "For me, special. Guys helped me a lot."
The 23-year-old had allowed nine goals on 82 shots in his first two games this season after going 0-2-0 with a 2.40 goals-against average and .937 save percentage in four games (three starts) last season.
"I thought Daniil in net was outstanding," Blue Jackets coach Brad Larsen said. "He was just very calm. He made tough saves look very easy tonight."

Zach Werenski, Andrew Peeke, Yegor Chinakhov, Eric Robinson and Kent Johnson scored for Columbus (3-4-0), which was coming off a 6-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday. Jakub Voracek and Jack Roslovic each had two assists, as did Liam Foudy, who was making his season debut.
"By committee, we're going to have to do it that way, and they know that," Larsen said. "Liam Foudy, in his first game since preseason, he had great legs. You could tell first period he was challenging the D-men with his legs. He gets to the net on his second opportunity, gets a couple assists, plus player. That's a big night for us."
Artemi Panarin scored for New York (3-2-1) to extend his point streak to six games (four goals, eight assists), the longest by a Rangers player to start a season since Marian Gaborik's eight-game streak in 2009-10.
"Not good enough, obviously," Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said. "We were far from good enough. We were slow. I didn't like the way we played. I like our team being an aggressive forechecking team. I didn't see much of that. I thought we were a step behind all night from a team that played back-to-back games. Disappointed with that. The speed of our game wasn't good."
Jaroslav Halak made 16 saves. He has lost his first two starts this season, including 4-1 to the Winnipeg Jets on Oct. 14, when he allowed three goals on 33 shots.
"I just got outplayed by their goalie," Halak said. "I need to be better next game, and hopefully down the road I can help the guys win a game, get some points. That wasn't my best tonight."

Panarin scored with one second left on a 5-on-3 to cut the Blue Jackets lead to 3-1 at 18:44 of the second period.
The Rangers kept up the pressure after his goal and had three more shots and seven attempts in the final 76 seconds of the period, but Tarasov and the Blue Jackets preserved the two-goal lead going into the second intermission.
They then limited the Rangers to six shots and no goals in the third period, a much different result from Saturday, when the Blue Jackets couldn't hold a 3-1 lead and allowed Pittsburgh to score five unanswered goals, including two in the second and three in the third.
"We had to learn from last night and we were in the same position tonight, up a couple goals," Blue Jackets captain Boone Jenner said. "And now we're on the other side of it. Keep playing. You do that and you're going to get some more chances. I think that's why we got a couple late."
Robinson made it 4-1 at 14:13 of the third period, deflecting Erik Gudbranson's shot from above the right face-off circle. Johnson scored 44 seconds later to give Columbus a 5-1 lead.
"This is far from Halak's fault. Far from Halak's fault," Gallant said. "I didn't like the body language of our players. I really didn't like it. You could see that. We were talking to the linesmen more than we were talking to our teammates. Let's just go play the game. We're big boys. We had some chances to get back into it. When it was 3-1 we had a couple real good chances early in the third and didn't bury it. Then it just seemed to get away from us."

Werenski gave Columbus a 1-0 lead at 17:54 of the first period, scoring from below the right face-off circle.
Peeke made it 2-0 with a wrist shot off the rush from the right circle at 1:42 of the second period, and Chinakhov extended the lead to 3-0 at 9:00 with a wrist shot from the top of the right circle.
"I will say how I said in the locker room in my speech, today was a winning mentality for the whole team," Tarasov said. "We were just focusing on our game, to play our best hockey. We did it."
NOTES:The Rangers played most of the game with 11 forwards because Filip Chytil left with an upper-body injury 1:32 into the first period. Chytil is day to day, Gallant said. … Columbus played most of the final two periods with five defensemen after Nick Blankenburg left with an upper-body injury after playing one shift in the second period.