*Photo from TSN*
It was a game of many milestones for the New York Rangers. Frank Vatrano scored twice, K'Andre Miller scored the winning goal, and the Rangers defeated the Buffalo Sabres with a 5-4 overtime win on Sunday night in New York.
The win for the Rangers completes a 3 game season sweep of the Sabres. Against Buffalo specifically, the Rangers have won 5 straight games, are 9-0-1 in their last 10 games, and have a 16-3-1 record in their last 20 games. In total, the Rangers have also won 5 of their last 6 home games in the schedule overall, and they are 9-2-1 in their last 12 home games.
As for the Sabres, their chance at their first 3 game road winning streak since November of 2018 came to an end with the loss. The Sabres are 3-0-2 in their last 5 games, with all 5 of those games reaching overtime, the first time the Sabres have done that since November of 2010.
Rangers head coach Gerard Gallant said that "We played a pretty solid game again tonight, but we made some turnovers. We didn't play as fast as we did the other night, and it was probably bad getting out to that 2-0 lead. Thought it was going to be easy again, and then fall into that habit where we started turning pucks over again."
The first goal of the game came from Vatrano, who took the feed from Chris Kreider and put it in 3:59 into the game, putting the Rangers up 1-0. That lead doubled when Vatrano scored again a mere 18 seconds later, and it was 2-0. Rasmus Asplund scored late in the first period, making it 2-1 Rangers after one period.
Buffalo tied the game just 2:06 into the second period, thanks to Will Butcher's second goal of the season, assisted by Vinnie Hinostroza and Peyton Krebs. Kyle Okposo put the Sabres ahead 3-2 at the 6:48 mark of the second, his 16th goal of the season. Alexis Lafreniere re-tied the game for the Rangers on his 15th goal of the season.
In the 3rd period, Artemi Panarin put the Rangers ahead 4-3 at the 3:02 mark of the 3rd, before Jeff Skinner scored a power play goal for the Sabres, tying the game 4-4 on his 27th goal on the season. That set the stage for Miller, who scored his 6th goal of the season, coming 2:02 into overtime to give the Rangers the win.
Miller said of the back and forth battle that "You're going to have those games, up and down battles. I think it just shows how deep our team is and what we can bring every night. Obviously, it wasn't our best, but we made it work and found a way."
It was Alexandar Georgiev who got the start for the Rangers, who got the win while not getting tested very often. Georgiev saved 13 of the mere 17 shots that the Sabres fired his way, posting a mere .765 save percentage, but it was enough to get the win, improving his record to 10-9-2 on the season.
Making the start was Buffalo's Craig Anderson, who was tested a lot more than his counterpart Georgiev. Anderson saved 26 out of the 31 shots on goal the Rangers had, good for a slightly better save percentage of .839. With the loss, Anderson's record drops to 12-9-1 this season.
Okposo said after the game that "We're starting to figure out how to play every game, and that's something that's a very hard thing to do. I'm not saying that we're there yet, because we're not, but we're starting to show some glimpses of it where we're sticking to our game no matter what. I think that today was a testament to that, and I've said it a lot, a ton of times, that that's the mark of the truly good teams in this league, and we're showing signs of getting there. By no means is it a finished product."
Up next, the Sabres finish a back to back with a Monday matchup against the Chicago Blackhawks, with Dustin Tokarski to get the start. Igor Shesterkin is the likely starter for the Rangers on Tuesday night against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
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