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 kicked off 2025 with an aggressive start and elite goaltending in a 2-1 win over Boston 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.
And since the Islanders lost to the Maple Leafs on Thursday night, the Rangers moved back into a last-place tie with their neighboring rivals at 35 points.
“I thought we established our forecheck early, I thought we were physical, I thought we were taking things to the net,” said Braden Schneider, who blocked three shots and landed two hits in the victory. “I think the thing that we did really well is we got a lot of second opportunities. Guys were there and getting rebounds and getting good looks.”
Jonathan Quick was stellar in his first start at home since Dec. 8, and the team, as well as the MSG fans, expressed sincerest 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 now 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.
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.”
“He’s so calm and collected,” said Reilly Smith, who assisted on Mika Zibanejad’s opening score. “He makes three huge saves in a row and he just goes about like nothing just happened. He does a good job kind of settling momentum for us. I think he did a huge job just pretty much taking a win for us tonight. He made some saves that probably would’ve went in and that changes the momentum of the game and gives us a little bit of a cushion.”
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.
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.
After Mika Zibanejad recorded his first point since Dec. 11 with a goal at the 9:48 mark, Brett Berard opted to shoot the puck himself on a two-on-one rush with Will Cuylle before sniping the puck top corner on Swayman to double the Rangers’ lead to 2-0.
Berard marveled at Quick’s performance in goal, noting that the veteran netminder has also taken him under his wing since he earned his first recall to the Rangers on Nov. 24.
“Every day I come to the rink, [he’s the] first one to say hi,” Berard said of Quick. “We have team gatherings and he’s always with us, the young guys, making sure that we’re fitting in with everybody. He’s a special guy and someone I’m super grateful to be around early in my career and to learn from. He’s a legend in this game. It’s pretty cool to watch him.”