Rangers 6, Coyotes 3

The New York Rangers defeated the Arizona Coyotes tonight by the score of 6-3. For a box score, click here.

I’ve seen a handful of Coyotes games this season and for some reason, they usually end up with Mike Smith breaking his stick over the post or the crossbar. Whatever it takes to get yourself on TV in Canada, I guess. Stiff competition over the World Juniors though. Canada scored 10 on Latvia. The US finally beat the Russians…

Almost forgot there was a Ranger game tonight… You would hope that they would be able to get past a very poor Coyotes team. It wasn’t there 5v5, so the special teams had to be the difference.

The Rangers power play has been terrible for most of the month so it’s been due to breakout, even against a team ranked 27th in the NHL on the PK. Still, over the course of the season you have to find different ways to win. Tonight was no different.

Three of the Rangers four goals on the power play came off the stick of Matt Puempel for his first NHL hat trick. First time a Ranger scored a hat trick on the power play since Gartner in 94. The parallels to that team are never ending.

There is a flip side of the script here… This is a team that the Rangers shouldn’t have any issues handling. The Coyotes allow a lot of shots and a lot of chances to opposing teams night in and night out. They hung around with the Rangers tonight but couldn’t stay out of the box which wound up being the difference. Same thing happened back in October when the Coyotes were at MSG minus the power play success.

AV jumbling the defensive pairings actually put the Rangers at a bit of a disadvantage. Skjei is not capable of carrying Girardi in the sense that Yandle could last season. And boy did it show up in that game. Skjei got badly undressed by Duclair and his shot glanced off Girardi’s stick past Raanta to bring the Coyotes within one late in the second period.

Girardi himself did not have a good game tonight. Case in point:

This is Girardi icing the puck just before the Coyotes scored. No pressure on him, and he was supported by Skjei and Kreider who were both still behind the blueline. This is just a microcosm of the criticism Girardi gets.

Not even going to provide commentary on the Coyotes tying goal, besides what is AV thinking putting Klein and Girardi out there together on the PK? 

From here, the Rangers go to Colorado for a New Years Eve matchup against another team that is more rudderless than themselves. Need a better showing there than the one tonight.