NEW YORK _ In a strange Sunday matinee that had everything from follies to fights, somehow the Rangers found some answers in the third period, and skated out of Madison Square Garden with a 4-3 victory over the Calgary Flames.
After a second period that coach Alain Vigneault called "awful from both sides ... there was nothing going on and no plays being made," and ended with the score 1-1 after 40 minutes, the Rangers beat goaltender Brian Elliott three times and held the Flames to two goals.
As a result, the Blueshirts escaped with two points and a much-needed win at home, where they had lost five of the last seven. "We wanted to get a win in any fashion and start this (four-game) home stand off on the right foot," Rangers captain Ryan McDonagh said.
In the third, Michael Grabner and Chris Kreider scored, sandwiched around a goal from Calgary's Troy Brouwer, and underrated Jesper Fast scored the decisive goal at 11:33 before the Flames made Henrik Lundqvist sweat by trimming the lead to one on Matthew Tkachuk's score a minute later.
"They've been winning lately and have a lot of confidence," said Lundqvist, who made 29 saves, "but we came out in the third and it looked like we made up our mind that we wanted these two points."
With the score tied at 1 after 20 minutes, the Rangers never seemed to have the puck for more than a few seconds, as the Flames stifled their offense, forcing giveaways. The Blueshirts offense was choppy; nothing was smooth about their game. Their third shot of the period came with 5:45 left. It was up to Lundqvist to keep Calgary, with far better scoring opportunities _ but just eight shots _ at bay.
The transformation came suddenly in the third, engineered by two 20-goal scorers. Grabner gave the Blueshirts a 2-1 lead with his 23rd goal of the season at 1:54. He initially missed a shot but retrieved the puck, and got it to J.T. Miller, who fed Brady Skjei and the rookie found Grabner in the lower right circle. Kreider used defenseman Dennis Wideman as a screen coming down the left side and fired over Elliott's glove at 8:20 for his 21st goal to snap a 2-2 tie.
"We weren't happy after the second, too many mistakes," said Fast, who struck for this fourth goal, on another pass from Miller, who had forced a turnover, from the right post to the slot. "Almost had an empty net," Fast said.
The teams had traded power-play goals in the first. With Dan Girardi whistled for a trip as he broke up a stretch pass at 5:26, Lundqvist's clearing pass was intercepted, and Dougie Hamilton's point shot went by a screen by Nick Holden at 6:59. The Blueshirts responded when Matt Stajan was off for tripping Zibanejad just 44 seconds later. Elliott blocked Derek Stepan's shot from the left side, but the rebound came to Rick Nash at the top of the crease and he snapped the puck over the goalie's glove at 8:54 for his 15th of the season.
A tenth of a second had prevented the Rangers from a 2-1 lead in the first. A back-to-the-net deflection by Nash zipped under the crossbar but was overturned on review. The red light went on, but replays showed that time had run out.
"That's what happens when things aren't going in for you," Nash said. Fortunately for the Rangers, enough went right in Sunday's final twenty minutes.
"I thought we were the better team," said Flames forward Mikael Backlund. "They came out hard in the third and took charge."
