NEW YORK _ Without a doubt, this landslide of goals by the Rangers _ 21 in the previous four games, with at least five in each _ simply couldn't be sustainable for very much longer.
After all, Sunday's game at Madison Square Garden was their fifth in the past eight days.
Or could it?
J.T. Miller, Jesper Fast and Pavel Buchnevich scored 4:04 apart late in the second period as the Rangers snapped a tie and went on to win their fifth straight, 5-2, over the Winnipeg Jets.
With the Jets' physical play forcing poor decisions and mental mistakes, all signs pointed to trouble for a Rangers team that had played the night before.
But then lightning struck.
Starting at 13:01 of the second period, Miller, Fast and Buchnevich all scored at even strength to give the Rangers a three-goal lead. Just like that.
Remarkably, the Rangers had scored 26 goals in the last 14 periods, five or more in five straight games. That hadn't happened since 1979.
"You're not expecting to score five goals every night. That's a lot against the goaltending talent in this league," Miller said. "We've played a lot of hockey lately. Some games you don't really have it, but you find ways. [Brandon] Pirri's line [with Fast and Buchnevich] stepped up with two more goals tonight that were big."
It certainly didn't look positive when the Rangers coughed up their second one-goal lead at 12:02 of the second. With the puck loose in the crease, Brady Skjei's face-first dive didn't help and no one covered Mark Scheifele, who tied the score at 2.
Henrik Lundqvist slapped his stick on the crossbar after the red light went on.
But 59 seconds later, Miller answered, skating down to the right dot and beating starter Connor Hellebucyk above his glove for the 3-2 lead. Kevin Klein's slapper from the point went past Hellebucyk (12 saves, 4 goals allowed) after the shot was ticked by Fast, prompting Michael Hutchinson to relieve him.
Then Buchnevich, who scored his first NHL on Saturday against the Bruins, didn't wait long for his second, attacking the crease and lifting his shot past Hutchinson at 17:05.
Henrik Lundqvist said: "I don't think we're super-pleased with everything in our game, but we're finding ways to win games. You can't expect it to be perfect every night. The big thing we have is that different guys have been stepping up in key moments."
The first penalty of the game came at 6:26 of the third period, when Mats Zuccarello, who had sniped a wrister _ also over Hellebucyk's glove _ at 10:02 of the second on a pass from Chris Kreider, was sent off for interference.
All the Rangers had to do was defend for a sweep of the weekend back-to-back series, and they did, very capably, killing off Rick Nash's penalty with 7:12 left, for their eighth win in the last nine game to raise their record to 10-3. They walked away with the win with just 18 shots on goal, including none in the third period.
Lundqvist, meanwhile, finished with 24 saves. He stopped all nine shots he faced in the third.
Ryan McDonagh said: "We weren't connecting the dots early, we weren't at the right tempo and we got a little ahead of ourselves. We didn't get hurt too much in the first and that gave us a chance to regroup. But we can't wait that late to fire on all cylinders."
The match started with a bang. Kevin Hayes extended his point streak to five games with a one-timer for his sixth goal at 2:21. The Jets tied it on a harmless looking low shot from Ben Chiarot at the right point that 18-year-old Patrik Laine, between the circles, tipped past Lundqvist at 10:45 for his eighth goal of the season, tying him with Sidney Crosby for the league lead.
