What a night! The Utah Hockey Club moved to a 6-5 overtime win over the New York Rangers. With the win, Utah moves to 3-0 on the year after beating the Chicago Blackhawks on opening night, then beat the New York Islanders 5-4 in overtime.
This win against the Rangers will be a considerable confidence booster for the Utah Hockey Club. The Rangers have made the NHL playoffs in three straight years, making it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals in two of those years. They are expected to be a Stanley Cup contender again this season.
In case you missed it, here is a recap of all of the action between the Utah Hockey Club and the New York Rangers.
Utah Hockey Club vs New York Rangers Game Recap
Utah entered this game as a considerable underdog, but they would battle all night. Barrett Hayton would open the scoring on a tap-in on a beautiful feed from Clayton Keller, who got the puck from Nick Schmaltz, who created a turnover in the defensive end.
The Rangers then responded on the rush. Artemi Panarin fired a wrister using the Utah defender as a screen, and it beat Connor Ingram clean. These would be the only two goals scored in the first period, and Utah and the Rangers would go into the first intermission tied 1-1.
The second period is when all chaos breaks loose. Jack McBain would open the scoring in the period before Panarin would answer with his second of the game. Clayton Keller would get Utah's second goal six minutes into the frame after a great forecheck and pass from Alex Kefoot. Then Kevin Stenlund would fire a wrister past Igor Shesterkin two minutes later. But, it would only take the Rangers one minute to respond on a dump-in that took a funny bounce off the boards and would end up in Utah's empty net as Connor Ingram left to play the puck.
Utah would extend the lead back to two goals on Dylan Guenther's fifth goal of the season, but that would only last for a while as Braden Schneider would score the seventh goal of the period to bring the Rangers within one goal going into the second intermission.
The third period was much quieter, but the Rangers scored the tying goal 12 minutes into it on a Will Cuyile deflection in front of the net. The game would remain tied throughout, but Utah did not take long to win in overtime as Captain Keller used his creativity in front of the net to elevate the puck past Sheshterkin for the game-winner.
Utah made a great effort to beat an exceptional Rangers team. They did not have their best defensive performance, getting out-chanced at five-on-five, but Connor Ingram made timely saves to keep them, and the offence lit up one of the best goaltenders in the NHL, Igor Shesterkin.
The Utah Hockey Club will look to improve to 4-0 and win its third straight road game when it meets the New Jersey Devils in New Jersey on Monday night.