The Rangers haven’t attacked a game the way they did Thursday night against the Bruins in weeks.
It’s one of many aspects of their game that has been missing during their free fall to last place in the Metropolitan Division, but the Rangers started off 2025 with some much-needed aggression on offense to take a 2-1 win at Madison Square Garden.
With the victory, the Rangers avoided matching a season-high fifth straight loss and opened the new year in the win column.
An Islanders regulation loss to the Maple Leafs on Thursday night would move the Rangers back into a last-place tie with their neighboring rivals at 35 points.
Jonathan Quick was stellar in his first start at home since Dec. 8, and the MSG fans expressed their gratitude to the backup netminder.
With No. 1 goalie Igor Shesterkin on injured reserve with an upper-body injury, Quick is expected to shoulder a bulk of the workload in the Russian’s absence of at least seven days.
The 38-year-old goalie flashed the reflexes of a 20-year-old while stopping 32 of the 33 shots he faced.
Quick is just one win away from reaching 400 and becoming the first American-born goalie to do so.
When the Blueshirts were leading 2-0 early in the second period, Quick made three straight dynamic saves to keep the Bruins off the board.
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He denied Mark Kastelic’s backhander from between the circles before getting in front of Justin Brazeau’s wrister and gloving down John Beecher’s follow-up shot.
It had the Garden echoing “QUICK-IE.”
The Bruins cut the Rangers’ lead in half at the 7:57 mark of the second when Elias Lindholm buried a cross-zone feed from David Pastrnak.
Quick later got over in time to make a split save on Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy and maintain the Rangers’ lead.
Even Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman gave Quick props for that one when they crossed paths heading to their respective benches.
Going toe-to-toe with the Bruins during their push to tie the game in the third period, the Rangers kept the visitors at bay for the most part as Quick covered up for the rest.
Boston poured 12 shots on in the third period to outshoot the Rangers, 33-27, on the night, but the Rangers were able to stave off the equalizer.
The Rangers opened up the scoring on a goal that came with more meaning than just on the scoreboard.
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Chris Kreider intercepted Swayman’s clearing attempt before dishing to Mika Zibanejad crashing the middle of the zone.
The Swedish center’s rebound was collected by Reilly Smith, who backhanded it past Swayman before Zibanejad swooped in to give it an extra push over the goal line.
The goal maybe could’ve gone either way, but Smith immediately gestured for Zibanejad to go first in the celebratory fist-bump line.
It counted as Zibanejad’s first point since Dec. 11 and first even-strength goal since Nov. 19.
Skating at a higher pace than we’ve seen lately, the Rangers were able to build their first two-goal, first-period lead since Oct. 22, their sixth game of the season in Montreal.
On a two-on-one rush with Will Cuylle, Brett Berard opted to take it himself and ultimately sniped the puck top corner on Swayman to double the Rangers’ lead to 2-0 at the 12:53 mark of the opening frame.
Berard slid on one knee through the zone in an emotional celebration of his third NHL goal and first at the Garden.
