Kreider, Fast help Rangers past Hurricanes

RALEIGH, N.C. --Chris Kreider and Jesper Fast each scored two goals and Henrik Lundqvist made 32 saves for the New York Rangers in a 6-1 win against the Carolina Hurricanes at PNC Arena on Wednesday.
Mika Zibanejad and Paul Carey also scored for the Rangers (11-9-2), who have won two in a row and eight of their past 10 games (8-2-0).

The Rangers played without defenseman Ryan McDonagh, who is out with an abdominal strain.
WATCH: [All Rangers vs. Hurricanes highlights]
"Obviously, when you lose your best defensive player, it's tough to fill that hole, but I thought our guys did a really good job," said Brendan Smith, who was plus-4. "We made the simple plays and it helped us early."
Sebastian Aho scored for the Hurricanes (9-7-4), who had won two straight.
The Rangers scored on their first two shots of the game. J.T. Miller and Smith made cross-ice passes before Kreider finished a one-timer from the right circle for a 1-0 lead at 52 seconds of the first period.
"Unbelievable play by Brendan, really heads up play," Kreider said. "There were a bunch of other ones I probably should have put in too. Guys were really looking for me."
Zibanejad pushed the lead to 2-0 at 2:26 on a mistake by Hurricanes goaltender Scott Darling. Zibanejad flipped the puck on goal from inside the red line, but Darling reached across his body with his glove and fanned on the puck.

"That's a tough one to give up obviously," Hurricanes coach Bill Peters said. "That's not how you envision the start. I thought our start was poor."
The Hurricanes made it 2-1 when Aho took a pass in the right circle from Teuvo Teravainen for a power-play goal at 8:50, extending Aho's goal-scoring streak to five games.
Carey scored his first of the season at 10:47 for a 3-1 lead. Darling made two saves before Carey put home a rebound at the top of the crease.
Kreider extended the Rangers lead to 4-1 on a power-play goal 20 seconds into the third period when he took Mats Zuccarello's backhand feed across the slot and slipped the puck under Darling.

"They get the first one there on their power play, (then) we got outworked pretty much the remainder of the third period," Hurricanes defenseman Justin Faulk said.
Fast scored twice in the third period. He made it 5-1 when Kevin Hayes slid a pass to the slot for his second of the season at 5:45.
Steven Kampfer's long pass below the circles set up Fast for a one-timer for a 6-1 lead at 12:26.
Darling made 21 saves for the Hurricanes.

Goal of the game

Kreider's one-timer 52 seconds into the first period.

Save of the game

Lundqvist's glove save on Jordan Staal at 13:56 of the first period.

Highlight of the game

Kampfer's pass on Fast's goal at 12:26 of the third period.

They said it

"We came ready to play. I don't think we gave them three or four chances 5-on-5 in the whole game. We needed guys to step up on defense. This was probably Smith's best game of the year tonight both offensively and defensively."-- Rangers coach Alain Vigneault
"We were slow to pucks, we were slow defensively. We didn't close on anybody and when we did close, we weren't physical enough to put an end to the cycle or their offensive zone motion. We were shorthanded for 49 seconds to start the third and they scored on it. Then that was the air out of the balloon for us. We didn't compete from that point on very hard." -- Hurricanes coach Bill Peters

Need to know

Nick Holden (22:00), Smith (19:56) and Kampfer (17:35) each had a season-high in ice time. ... Lundqvist improved to 26-11-1 against the Hurricanes. … Justin Williams played in his 1,100th NHL regular-season game.

What's next

Rangers: Host the Detroit Red Wings on Friday (7 p.m. ET; MSG 2, FS-D, NHL.TV)
Hurricanes: Host the Toronto Maple Leafs on Friday (7:30 p.m. ET; TSN 4, FS-CR, NHL.TV