Rangers 2 Coyotes 2
PHOENIX — Terrific, terrific, entertaining hockey here last night, and just another example of how the Rangers are at their best in wide-open games where they have open ice to display their skill.
The Blueshirts took a point from the Coyotes, earning — that’s the operative word — a 2-2 draw when Kevin Hatcher’s screaming wrist shot from the top of the right circle at 15:41 of the third found the short side on Bob Essensa.
It’s a point that draws the Rangers within three points of the eighth-place Bruins and four points of the seventh-place Sabres in a lower half of an Eastern Conference that seems more and more suspect every day. A point, too, ironically that comes in the Rangers’ fourth straight without a victory (0-2-2) — their longest winless streak since going 0-5-2 from Oct. 19 through Nov. 5.
The Rangers may well have deserved two points last night, generating as they did a plethora of glorious scoring chances against the Coyotes. But at the same time, they could well have come away with none, given that Phoenix had a high number of quality chances itself against Mike Richter.
Each goaltender faced breakaways. Each goaltender faced point-blank chances. Each goaltender yielded rebound opportunities. Each goaltender earned a point for his respective team, even if Richter seemed far steadier than his opponent in making his saves.
The Coyotes were without both Keith Tkachuk (back spasms) and Rick Tocchet (flu) last night, but the Rangers were without Brian Leetch, rehabbing from his broken right arm, for the 13th straight game. Remarkably, the Blueshirts have gone 5-5-3-1 for 14 points without their captain. Not once since Leetch went down in Tampa on Thanksgiving Eve has the team used Leetch’s absence as an excuse or a crutch. Not once. That says impressive things about this group that is becoming a team.
With Leetch gone, Hatcher in particular has raised his game to the level expected of him upon his pre-season acquisition from Pittsburgh. Receiving the largest doses of ice time on the team, he and partner Rich Pilon are now John Muckler’s first defense pair, sent out regularly against the opposition’s top unit.
Hatcher and Pilon last night drew the assignment against Jeremy Roenick, Dallas Drake and Greg Adams. While on for Shane Doan’s goal that brought the Coyotes into a 1-1 tie at 12:19 of the second, Hatcher was extremely good most of the game.
Actually, so were the Rangers other than the final 15 minutes of the second period. Playing safe, conservative hockey, the Blueshirts managed a 1-0 lead at 3:37 of the second on Adam Graves’ rebound slam dunk. The goal marked the Rangers’ eighth PPG in their last seven games — this after opening the season by scoring nine in their first 28.
Following the goal, the Rangers suffered lapses. Doan took advantage to convert a brilliant Roenick feed to knot the game. And then at 18:36 of the period the Coyotes took a 2-1 lead when Roenick converted Adams’ feed on a play where Mathieu Schneider was beaten one-on-one behind the net.
The Rangers however were the aggressors in the third. The Todd Harvey-Kevin Stevens-Eric Lacroix line got things going with a strong down-low shift three minutes into the period. Petr Nedved, Valeri Kamensky — you can see what his injuries have cost the Rangers in terms of skill and speed — and Jan Hlavac began to skate. Theo Fleury created a breakaway for himself at 7:15 by stripping Roenick, but hit the post. The slumping Alexandre Daigle was rejected on a breakaway with 9:45 to go.
But the Rangers refused to back off. At the end of a shift instead of dumping the puck in for a change, Kamensky hit Hlavac through the neutral zone. Hlavac curled at the right boards and slid the puck back to Hatcher, who unleashed the bullet that found net with Nedved providing the screen.
And so the Rangers got their point. With a game coming up tonight in Dallas, they needed it.
Best of all, they earned it in a terrific match.