Garand makes 19 saves, Rangers defeat Canucks in first game without Shesterkin

NEW YORK -- Dylan Garand made 19 saves, and the New York Rangers won 6-2 against the Vancouver Canucks at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, their first game since learning goalie Igor Shesterkin would be out for the rest of the season with a lower-body injury.

Shesterkin was injured in a 3-1 loss to the Washington Capitals on Friday. The Rangers announced on Saturday that he would miss the remainder of the season, and that Garand would get the opportunity to be the new No. 1 goalie this season.

"It's obviously tough when you lose your best player in 'Shesty,' a guy who plays so well for this team for so long and is such a big part of it," Garand said. "It's tough. It's a blow to the group for sure. But it happens sometimes. It's pro sports, players get injured. I think the guys did a great job of stepping up tonight and we're going to need more of that for sure."

Tye Kartye and Will Cuylle both scored their first two goals of the season, Alexis Lafreniere and Gabe Perreault each had a goal and an assist, and J.T. Miller and Mika Zibanejad had two assists apiece. 

"I think there's a maturity to this group," Rangers coach Mike Sullivan said. "These guys, they haven't lost any level of enthusiasm. I think they believe in the team game we're trying to build here and I think they will continue to compete. At the end of the day, that's our challenge and that's the discussion we had. Expectations don't change. It's the next man up mentality. It's going to provide opportunities for others -- take advantage of it."

The Rangers (5-2-0) improved to 4-0-0 at home to start the season. They have outscored their opponents 9-1 in the third period at home, including 3-0 against Vancouver.

"I think it's just a ton of buy-in from our group," Garand said. "There's different ways you can approach it; you can lose games in the third period, and you can win games, and I think right now we're focused on winning games. That's been huge for us."

Jake DeBrusk and defenseman Elias Pettersson scored for the Canucks (2-5-0), who lost their fourth consecutive game. Kevin Lankinen made 19 saves.

"It's not a great feeling, obviously, when you can't put some wins together and the losses start adding up," Vancouver coach Manny Malhotra said. "It's not a great feeling but the test of our character at this point is to make sure we're coming to the rink with the right attitude ready to work and ready to discuss and address the issues that are plaguing us right now."

Kartye's second goal of the game at 18:25 of the second period gave New York a 3-2 lead. It came 1:29 after Pettersson scored a short-handed goal to tie it 2-2.

Vladislav Gavrikov led a clean breakout to Miller, who moved the puck across the zone to Kartye. He scored with a near-side shot from the left circle.

"It could be deflating when you give up one on your power play, and that was a big part of the game, that stretch there," Sullivan said. "I thought it was a good response."

The Rangers' power play responded early in the third period, with Lafreniere extending the lead to 4-2 off a pass from Perreault at 1:04. Perreault was on the first power-play unit to start the third period, replacing Pavel Dorofeyev, who Sullivan said he thought "was fighting it a little bit."

Lafreniere scored with Lankinen out of the crease after contacting Miller above the blue paint. The officials conferred briefly and the goal stood with no coach's challenge from Vancouver.

Perreault made it 5-2 at 5:57, scoring on a deflection of Adam Fox's shot.

Cuylle added one off a rebound at 15:22 for the 6-2 final.

"I didn't think we were as clean in the first half of the game," Sullivan said. "I thought we got better as the game went on. I thought the third period we were terrific."

Said Malhotra: "It's disappointing when you let the game get away from you like that. Lack of details. Lack of intensity to finish the game and the final score ends up being what it is."

Kartye got the Rangers going early, scoring 27 seconds into the game to give them a 1-0 lead. 

Vancouver tied it 1-1 on DeBrusk's goal at 17:04 off a sharp-angled shot from the left circle. 

Cuylle gave the Rangers a 2-1 lead with a shot past Lankinen's glove from the top of the left circle at 2:09. 

Pettersson tied it 2-2 with his first career short-handed goal at 16:56.

"Bad third period," Canucks forward Drew O'Connor said. "I thought our first two periods, we were pretty good and we were right in the game. We give up one early on the PK. We have to do better there. We kind of let it snowball after that."

NOTES: Canucks defenseman Guillaume Brisebois made his season debut replacing Jamie Oleksiak, who was a healthy scratch. He played 12:44 with two shots on goal. … Zibanejad became the third player in Rangers history to have at least 250 points on the power play with the team, joining Brian Leetch (514) and Rod Gilbert (323).