Lucas Raymond could have shot from the right faceoff circle. He could have fired it from the left circle. He could have tried a wraparound. He could have passed the puck.
He instead circled behind the net, skated into the slot, got goaltender Jonathan Quick to slide to the side and buried the puck with 3:47 remaining in regulation to snap a tie. It was what’s called a goal-scorer’s goal, and it lifted the Detroit Red Wings past the New York Rangers 2-1 Sunday at Madison Square Garden.
The solid 60-minute effort was a strong response to Saturday’s 5-4 overtime loss to Buffalo, when the Red Wings squandered a three-goal lead.
What made Raymond decide to hold onto the puck during that late rush?
“Ask myself that sometimes, too,” he told media in New York. “I just try to hold on to it, see what opened up and eventually I was kind of by myself. Shooting is a big part of the game and this time it was the right thing.”
Raymond’s shot on the power play in the second period was tipped in by Alex DeBrincat, his fifth goal in three games, to open the scoring.
Both players are on a roll. Raymond has eight points (goal, seven assists) in the past four games, giving him 20 points, including five goals, in 17 games overall.
“I think Razor the last three or four games looks like Razor to me,” coach Todd McLellan told reporters. “I thought he had a tenacity, too. A physical tenacity through the last three or four games that we probably hadn’t seen earlier, which is a good sign.”
Raymond said, “Everyone was contributing and it was a solid, mature game, but we still didn’t lose our offense in any way. Kind of try to copy, paste, but make it a habit of playing that way.”
The Red Wings (11-7-1) have gained five-of-six points in their past three games and play their next three at home, starting Tuesday against Seattle (7 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network).
Cam Talbot needed to make only 18 saves to improve to 7-2-0. He faced only three shots in the third period. The Red Wings outshot the Rangers 33-13 over the final 40 minutes.
“The difference between (Saturday) and tonight and the mental fortitude to come back and play a game like that after what had happened in third period last night … give the guys a ton of credit,” Talbot told reporters. “They came out, established our game early. Power play got us a big one there, and Ray gets his huge one at the end of the game. But that doesn’t happen if we don’t check the way that we do. And this is a tough building to do that in.”
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