CHICAGO — After beating NHL elites Colorado and Tampa Bay in their first two games after the All-Star break, imagine how the Rangers would have felt if they had lost on Friday night to Chicago, the NHL’s worst team?
They didn’t, because Mika Zibanejad’s goal with 2:23 left in overtime gave them a 4-3 victory at the United Center, but they couldn’t be happy with this performance, not after blowing a 3-1 lead with less than seven minutes to play.
Goals by Nick Foligno at 13:37 of the third period and Jason Dickinson at 18:58, with goaltender Petr Mrazek pulled for an extra skater, tied it at 3-3 and forced the overtime.
Then Zibanejad took advantage of a poor line change by Chicago that gave the Rangers a three-on-two advantage, taking a pass from Chris Kreider and beating Mrazek for the winner.
“It’s not a great performance, but at the end of the day, it’s easier to look at it and demand more from ourselves when we get the two points and move on,’’ Zibanejad said.
“Nobody’s real happy with the way we played the game,’’ coach Peter Laviolette said. “It was not one of our better efforts. We walk away with the two points, the win’s in the column. We’ll fix some things. We’ll be better next game.’’
Alexis Lafreniere, Kreider and Jonny Brodzinski scored in regulation for the Rangers, who improved to 33-16-3 (69 points) and stretched their lead in the Metropolitan Division to six points over idle Carolina.
Goalie Igor Shesterkin, playing for the first time since the break, made 28 saves to end a personal two-game losing streak and move to 20-12-1.
“I thought Igor looked good,’’ Laviolette said. “If you look at the goals, really, there’s not a lot you can do on them. There’s a quick rebound in front of the net [on Foligno’s goal]. Everything leading up to it, there’s so many things that we could have done differently and we didn’t. The redirect and then the seeing-eye shot by Alex Vlasic in the first period]. I thought…
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