NEW YORK _ David Quinn's objective for the Rangers this weekend was to put Thursday's loss to the Islanders behind them and start a new winning streak.
"Everybody's going to lose hockey games," the first-year Rangers coach said Saturday, before his team hosted the Florida Panthers at Madison Square Garden. "The key is, what do you do after you lose? Do you have the mental toughness and wherewithal to stop it, or are you going to let it snowball?"
They didn't. Henrik Lundqvist, pulled Thursday after two periods, was brilliant in goal, making 39 saves, and goals from red-hot rookie Filip Chytil and defenseman Brendan Smith, who was returning to the lineup after a three-game absence, had big goals to lead the Rangers to a 4-2 win over the Panthers Saturday that was their 10th win of the season (10-8-2) and seventh in the last nine games (7-1-1).
Lundqvist earned his 438th career victory and moved past Jacques Plante into seventh place all-time in wins.
The Rangers, who have had so many struggles protecting a lead this season, entered the third period up 3-2, and got an insurance goal when Chris Kreider scored his 11th goal, on the power play, at 7:56.
Ryan Strome, the former Islanders first-round pick the Rangers acquired Friday from Edmonton in exchange for Ryan Spooner, had flown overnight from Edmonton and arrived in New York early Saturday morning. But with Mats Zuccarello out because of the same groin issue that sidelined him for three games recently, the new guy had to play. Quinn slotted him on the right wing of the third line, with Jimmy Vesey and Brett Howden.
"He's put up some points, he's had a 50-point season, (he's) a guy that kills penalties _ and he's still young," Quinn said of Strome. "He's been in the league awhile, and that's something that can happen in this league, you know, when guys get in the league young ... but there's certainly a lot of hockey ahead of him and we feel his best hockey is ahead of him and that's our job to get it out of him. And he's going to have every opportunity here to do that."
Jesper Fast, who is normally the right wing on the third line, moved up to the first line, with Vlad Namestnikov and Mika Zibanejad, and Chytil, who'd played left wing on the top line Thursday against the Islanders, moved to the second line, where he played right wing with Chris Kreider and Kevin Hayes. Chytil, who went the first 18 games of the season without scoring a goal, started the game with jump, and got a good scoring chance coming in off the wing and crashing the net just 27 seconds in. On his second shift, he scored his third goal in the last three games, giving the Rangers a 1-0 lead at 3:03.
