PITTSBURGH — Ah, there it is.
There is the Rangers’ power play that they so desperately need and had gone missing in recent games. And there is the Artemi Panarin, who had been mired in a scoring slump, that fans had become accustomed to.
It was like the Rangers were insulted whenever the Penguins scored.
They stormed to life and kicked into high gear nearly every time Pittsburgh put the puck in their net, quickly answering with fierce — and pretty — offensive flurries en route to a 7-4 barn-burner win Saturday afternoon at PPG Paints Arena.
The Rangers improved to 44-19-4, leading the Metropolitan Division with 92 points.
And boy, was their passing beautiful. Perhaps the best of the season.
“I just liked their responses in the first period,” head coach Peter Laviolette said. “We gave up an early goal, scored two. Gave one up, got the third. I liked the response. Pittsburgh played hard, they were tough all night, they didn’t stop working, but I think our guys just kept battling as well.”
Panarin punched in a rebound, his second goal of the day and 38th of the season, from Adam Fox’s shot on a power play to give the Rangers a 4-3 lead 16:27 into the second period.
One minute and three seconds later, on another power play, Mika Zibanejad capped a stunning team goal, as Panarin expertly found Chris Kreider, who set up Zibanejad with an easy tap-in to extend the Rangers’ lead to 5-3.
Entering Saturday, the Rangers had gone scoreless on their last eight power-play opportunities, spanning three games.
Going back further, the Rangers had scored just 11 goals in their last 66 power-play opportunities, spanning 20 games.
But when the Penguins tied the game at 3-3 and began imposing themselves in the second period, the Rangers’ power play quickly came alive.
It was emblematic of their entire performance, scoring in bunches after allowing a goal.
The Rangers immediately responded to John Ludvig’s snipe just 2:36 into the game, ripping off two goals in rapid succession much like their second-period outburst, though these came at even strength.
Kaapo Kakko equalized 31 seconds after Ludvig’s goal, and Adam Fox carved up Marcus Petterson just 26 seconds later, sending him to the ground with a lethal forehand-to-backhand move in front of the net before beating Tristan Jarry with a backhand to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead 3:33 into the game.
Bryan Rust — off a nifty pass from Sidney Crosby — knotted the game at 2-2 12:27 into the first period, but there came the Rangers with another quick response.
It will be hard to find a more exquisite pass than Vincent Trocheck’s dish to Panarin, a perfectly weighted, cross-ice feed that Panarin just had to tap in to reestablish the Rangers’ lead, 3-2, 15:32 into the opening period.
“Goalie probably couldn’t believe it,” Panarin said of Trocheck’s pass. “Puck was going slowly, goalie probably thought, because their defenseman laid down, it wasn’t possible for it to go to me, but [Trocheck] made a pretty good pass and then I shot it on an empty net.”
In a season of eye-catching goals for the Rangers, Fox, Panarin’s first and Zibanejad’s were right up there at the top.
Panarin finished with two goals and three assists after recording just one point in the previous three games.
Jonathan Quick’s encore in Pittsburgh — after he produced one of the NHL’s best goaltending performances of the year in a 1-0 win on Nov. 22 the last time the Rangers played here — was certainly not as dominant, but he collected himself and came up big after a rough first period.
He never appeared to pick up Ludvig’s long slap shot and was late coming across his crease on Rust’s one-timer, but finished with 34 saves on 38 shots.
Laviolette called him “fantastic.”
He made three critical saves midway through the second period, stuffing Noel Acciari’s unimpeded shot before, on a subsequent Penguins power play, somehow gloving Evgeni Malkin’s point-blank slap shot and turning away Sidney Crosby’s wrister to keep the score 3-2.
Quick gloved a breakaway wrist shot from Lars Eller in the beginning of the third period to keep the game at 5-3.
K’Andre Miller rifled in a wrist shot from the point to extend the Rangers’ lead to 6-3 4:41 into the third period, his first goal since Dec. 27. Kreider’s empty-net goal made it 7-4 in the final minute.
For as salivating as the Rangers’ puck movement was, their defense was equally concerning.
They had surrendered just one goal in over 200 minutes of hockey roughly midway through Thursday’s 6-3 loss to the Lightning, but they’ve since given up 10 goals in roughly a game-and-a-half.
But the Rangers’ breathtaking passing meant it didn’t matter.
“There was some really nice passing in there,” Laviolette said. “Quick puck movement as opposed to slowing it down.”
