ST. LOUIS – The Rangers have been bad at home and good on the road this season. They should have been comfortable, then, playing against the St. Louis Blues Thursday at the Enterprise Center, and not Madison Square Garden.
But because the Blues wanted to show off their newly redesigned away jerseys for the home fans, they requested the Rangers wear their home blue jerseys for the game. So now we have learned that the Rangers’ struggles at home aren’t the fault of their blue jerseys.
J.T. Miller’s goal with 2:39 left in overtime off a pass from Vincent Trocheck gave the Rangers a 2-1 victory against one of the bottom teams in the Western Conference. The victory improved the Rangers to 17-15-4 on the season, and 13-5-1 on the road.
It was Miller’s third overtime goal of the season for the Rangers, who have the most road victories in the league.
Igor Shesterkin made 26 saves in the win. He stopped all 22 shots he faced after the first period. Jordan Binnington had 28 saves for the Blues.
The Rangers were playing without their leading scorer, Artemi Panarin, who missed the game due to illness. But they did have prospects Gabe Perreault and Brennan Othmann, who were called up Wednesday from AHL Hartford, in the lineup. And Perreault, who had been leading Hartford in scoring, contributed his first NHL goal.
With Panarin out, Sullivan shelved the five-forward power-play look he had been using since No. 1 point man Adam Fox went on long-term injured reserve with an upper-body injury. Rookie defenseman Scott Morrow replaced Panarin on the power play, taking over at the point in the first unit.
Known as an offensive defenseman who can run a power play, Morrow hadn’t actually gotten much power-play time in his first 10 games with the Rangers. He got a couple of turns with the first unit in the third period of last week’s 3-0 loss in Chicago, but not much more than that.
“If the opportunity (to play on the top unit) comes, it’d be a lot of fun,’’ Morrow said at the morning skate. “And just because I’ve done it in the past doesn’t mean I’m entitled to do it at all. So if I get that opportunity, I’m going to try and make the most of it, because I know have the skill set for it.’’
As it turned out, the power play got the Rangers their first goal, but it was the second unit, and Perreault, who did it. The Rangers were trailing 1-0 on a late first-period goal by newcomer Jonatan Berggren when Blues defenseman Justin Faulk was sent to the box for tripping Sam Carrick, giving the Rangers their second power play.
Perreault and the second unit came onto the ice for the final 10 seconds of the power play and Perreault was driving to the net when Will Cuylle’s shot from the wing banked in off his skate to make it 1-1.
The first period didn’t see a lot of action, as both teams on the bottom end of the scoring charts – the Rangers, at 2.51 goals per game coming in, were 29th in the league. The Blues, at 2.49, were 31st – and St. Louis was on the back end of a back-to-back, having played at home against Winnipeg Wednesday night.
So, predictably, there wasn’t much happening early on, but St. Louis grabbed a 1-0 lead with 1:02 left in the period on a weird goal by Berggren, who was playing in his second game for the Blues, after being claimed on waivers from Detroit on Tuesday.
Shesterkin created the problem when he misfired a pass to Vladislav Gavrikov on the low left boards that was way off the mark. Gavrikov dived to try and corral it, but couldn’t get it, and Dalibor Dvorsky picked up the puck and passed to Berggren down by the goal line. He walked in along the goal line and fired a shot from the bottom edge of the right circle that went up, past Shesterkin’s mask, and into the top near corner for his first goal as a Blue.
Notes & quotes: Fox, who has missed nine games, is eligible to return after the Christmas break. He traveled with the team to St. Louis and took part in the morning skate Thursday… Forward Jonny Brodzinski and D Urho Vaakanainen were the scratches.
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.