Panarin's four points help Rangers cruise past Penguins

NEW YORK --Artemi Panarin scored a season-high four points for his fourth straight multipoint game, and the New York Rangers defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins 8-4 at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday.

Panarin had a goal and three assists. He was one of eight Rangers with a goal and one of nine to score at least two points, including defenseman Adam Fox, who scored a shorthanded goal and had two assists on the power play, extending his point streak to 11 games (three goals, 18 assists). Igor Shesterkin made 41 saves, and New York (18-8-5) was 3-for-3 on the power play.
"Everyone contributed today and played well," Rangers center Mika Zibanejad said. "I think we've been playing pretty well as of late and just got to get a little bit better, but overall I thought we played a good game tonight."
The Penguins (24-13-2) have allowed 15 goals in their past two games, including a 7-5 loss at the Boston Bruins on Saturday, after allowing seven goals in a five-game winning streak from March 24-April 1. They play the Rangers again here Thursday.
"It just looks like we are kind of lost [defensively]," Pittsburgh forward Jared McCann said. "We are giving up chances we are not normally used to giving up. We are letting our goalies down right now and giving teams backdoor tap-ins and shots from high-grade areas. We need to tighten it up. We are not going to sit here and whine about it, let's learn from it."

Tristan Jarry allowed four goals on 11 shots before being replaced by Casey DeSmith to start the second period. DeSmith made 10 saves. Jarry missed the previous two games with an upper-body injury.
Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said it was difficult to assess Jarry and DeSmith because he didn't think the play in front of them was good enough.
"We just haven't played with the same sense of purpose and as a result the types of chances we are giving up are extremely high," Sullivan said. "It's hard to win games consistently when you give up the quality of chances that we have given up in the past two games."
The Rangers led 4-1 in the first period, getting power-play goals from Panarin and Ryan Strome. Shesterkin made 17 saves.
"We just capitalized on our chances," Fox said. "We got to the net a little more, got some goals around the crease."
Colin Blackwell gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead at 1:35 when his pass intended for Strome went into the net off Penguins defenseman Mike Matheson's left skate. Zibanejad made it 2-0 at 7:28 when he scored on a rebound in the slot, and Panarin made it 3-0 at 9:58.
McCann scored a power-play goal through traffic 40 seconds later to make it 3-1 at 10:38. Strome scored at 19:42 for a 4-1 lead.
"It was something we talked about, not backing off and stopping," Zibanejad said. "That was a big goal, especially that late in the first and to be able to go into the second with a three-goal lead."

Alexis Lafreniere extended the lead to 5-1 at 12:20 of the second period.
Matheson scored 15 seconds later to cut the lead to 5-2.
Kaapo Kakko scored New York's third power-play goal on a deflection at 6:10 of the third period to make it 6-2.
Jake Guentzel's one-timer from the left hash marks at 8:04 got the Penguins within 6-3.
Fox made it 7-3 from between the circles at 10:22, and Pavel Buchnevich made it 8-3 at 10:41.
Brian Dumoulin scored with 1:24 left for the 8-4 final.
"We've got to do a better job at team defense and collective effort," Sullivan said. "When we do that as a group of five or a group of six then we are a much better hockey team, and we have shown that. We've got to make sure we grab a hold of this thing as quickly as we can."
NOTES: Penguins defenseman John Marino didn't play the final 11:36 of the third period. Sullivan did not have an update. … Fox's point streak is the longest by a Rangers defenseman since Brian Leetch had a 14-game streak (20 points; six goals, 14 assists) from Oct. 30-Dec. 1, 1996. Fox is the fourth New York defenseman to have a point streak of at least 11 games. Leetch did it three times; Brad Park and Reijo Ruotsalainen each did it once. … The Rangers have scored at least eight goals in three of their past 11 games; the other two were against the Philadelphia Flyers (9-0 on March 17, 8-3 on March 25). It's the first time since 1992-93 they have scored at least eight goals three times. … New York last had nine players with at least two points in the same game March 31, 1986, a 9-0 victory against the New Jersey Devils. ... Panarin has scored 11 points (four goals, seven assists) in his past four games.