The Rangers jumped out to a three-goal first-period lead and held off the subsequent comeback attempt for Wednesday's 3-2 win over the Carolina Hurricanes before 17,269 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
After the Rangers (12-9-2) jumped all over the Hurricanes (15-9-1) with three goals -- from Mike Zibanejad, Brendan Smith and Adam Fox -- to open the game, New York needed Henrik Lundqvist's 41 saves and ultimately held on.
The process was not perfect, but the Rangers have now come out on top in their past three games, following last Saturday's 6-5 edge of the Montreal Canadiens and Monday's 3-2 overtime win over the Minnesota Wild.
"We found a way" - Mika Zibanejad on a hard-fought victory pic.twitter.com/CeKJTVSiAp
- Rangers Videos (@SNYRangers) November 28, 2019
"It's one of those games where we're clearly not happy with the way we played, but found a way to do it," said Zibanejad, who got the Rangers on the board at the 17:06 mark of the first period during a power play. "(Hank) played unbelievable and ... even a few weeks ago, last year, these are the games that we lost, lost some important points, but we found a way and that's good."
Smith, who doubled the Rangers' lead to 2-0 fewer than two minutes later, echoed Zibanejad's sentiment.
"It's really good -- I mean, three's a streak, right? So you kind of just keep building on it and I think we've done some good things with comebacks and I think we're just growing as a group," Smith said. "I think you guys could see that. We can feel it in the room and the thing that I'm really impressed (with) is the way we're able to hold out games right now with a win and I feel like if we have the lead, we've done a real good job, even with some interesting calls at the end there just with the penalty kills to buckle down.
"Hank is a huge force with that, but you need your best players to be your best players and it's hard to get wins, so you get them early. Crunch time, you're not trying to grab those points."
Mika is back 🔥
- Rangers Videos (@SNYRangers) November 28, 2019
(via @NYRangers) pic.twitter.com/hGSd7tm4Gj
In his 1,000th career game -- including regular season and playoffs -- Lundqvist shut the Hurricanes down, aside from two lapses 1:29 apart during the second period, when Ryan Dzingel's power play and Warren Foegele chipped into the Rangers' 3-2 lead.
"They're a fast team and they create a lot of chances, so you have to respect that," said Lundqvist, who takes the third-period performance into Friday's 1 p.m. game against the Atlantic Division-leading Bruins (17-3-5) in Boston. "But we played a smart game and late into the second, we started to get too sloppy ... so they're back in the game. But the great thing here is the way we battled in the third, just to close it down. They got a few chances, but overall, it felt like we were in the right place, getting to second opportunities and getting to these pucks and clearing them.
"It's a fun feeling when you win in different ways. I thought the other night was more of the skill that helped us. I thought tonight it was more of the will. You're going to have different things to different games along the way. Today was definitely the will and our mindset in the third."
After his 1,000 game as a Ranger, Henrik Lundqvist reflects on a milestone fit for a king pic.twitter.com/00g6hlG9SQ
- Rangers Videos (@SNYRangers) November 28, 2019