TAMPA, Fla. — For the first month of the season, the New York Rangers played tight defense and avoided costly turnovers but were often victimized by an offense that couldn’t finish its scoring chances.
Lately, it’s been the opposite.
New York’s once-sagging shooting percentage has soared, with Wednesday’s 7-3 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning at Benchmark International Arena aiding the cause. The Rangers (9-7-2) tallied those goals on 21 shots, including each of their first three to begin a frantic first period, and have now scored 13 times on just 39 shots across their last two games. Suddenly, a SH% that sat at 7.6 to begin the week has jumped to a respectable 10.4.
“Like we always said earlier, it always balances out,” said forward Will Cuylle, who netted a pair of goals and now holds the team lead with six on the season. “With all the analytical numbers, it feels like eventually they’ve got to start going in, right?”
The pendulum swing resulted in the Rangers’ season high for goals scored and an NHL-leading eighth road win. It may just be the law of averages, but the scoring explosion has provided a much-needed confidence boost while leaving players feeling looser. That much was obvious as Afroman’s “Crazy Rap” blared from the visiting dressing room.
“I’m happy we scored a lot of goals the last two games, but I don’t think we’ve done anything different,” said Artemi Panarin, who led the way with four assists. “It’s just pucks are going in the net. Maybe right now, we’re a little less shaky in our hands and not gripping the stick (as tightly). That’s probably helping us.”
The question moving forward is whether they can maintain that offensive efficiency — or at least something close to it — while recommitting to the structure and sound puck management that helped them start as one of the league’s better defensive operations.
The Rangers weren’t at their crispest when it came to breakouts or neutral-zone play, which led to 17 giveaways and too many rush opportunities against. It also tilted the possession arrow in Tampa’s direction, with the Lightning building a 36-21 advantage in shots on goal and a 14-8 edge in high-danger scoring chances, according to Natural Stat Trick.
It was far from their most complete game of the season, yet it was one of the Rangers’ most lopsided victories. It continues the theme of unpredictability that has surrounded this team through 18 games.
“The irony of it is, I feel like the games where we didn’t score, the effort and execution on both sides of the puck was really high,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “Tonight, I don’t think we were at our best, but we were opportunistic. We had some pretty good looks, and we scored on them. You could say the same thing about the last game. I don’t think they were the cleanest games from an execution standpoint on either side of the puck.”
Here are 8 more observations from Wednesday night in Tampa:
1. Just what you expected from a matchup between two of the NHL’s best goalies, huh? Neither New York’s Igor Shesterkin nor Tampa’s Andrei Vasilevskiy was sharp out of the gate, allowing a total of seven goals on 18 combined shots in the first period. But while Shesterkin settled as the game wore on, his Russian countryman never quite found it. Vasilevskiy ended up allowing five goals on just 13 shots faced before getting pulled to begin the third period.
2. The Shesterkin haters were out after the opening period, which may be a product of the eight-year, $92 million contract that kicked in this season and made him the league’s highest-paid netminder. Fans expect him to live up to it every night, which is understandable, but there should also be recognition that he’s been the team’s backbone and held up under tremendous fire for several years now. He has been — and remains — the least of their concerns.
Wednesday wasn’t his best performance, but it wasn’t egregious, either. He had a clean look on the first Lightning goal, a left-circle wrister from Scott Sabourin off the rush, but it was also an extremely well-placed shot in the top left-hand corner of the net. And the other two goals he allowed were high-danger chances — a broken play in the slot from Zemgus Girgensons and a clear breakaway from Tampa’s leading scorer, Jake Guentzel. Following the Guentzel goal, Shesterkin stopped each of the final 26 shots he faced, including several while protecting a one-goal lead. He finished with 33 saves.
“He was huge,” Sullivan said.
3. The first period made me think of a memorable line from Will Ferrell’s Ricky Bobby character in “Talladega Nights,” a movie that was a favorite during my college days: “I’m too drunk to taste this chicken.” Because, man, those opening 20 minutes felt like both teams had a few. “Definitely a bit wide open for our liking,” as Cuylle put it. Both teams struggled to connect on passes and got themselves caught in vulnerable positions, leading to a track-meet feel that Sullivan has been working to avoid early in his Rangers’ tenure.
“I don’t want to put words in (Lightning coach Jon Cooper’s) mouth, but probably both coaching staffs weren’t overly thrilled,” Sullivan said. “It was a loose period just all around. I didn’t think we were at our best. From a defensive standpoint, we’ve been a whole lot stingier.”
4. Carson Soucy had some of the most extreme twists and turns on that first-period roller coaster. He was an adventure with the puck and was charged with a team-worst four giveaways, including a bad pass along the boards that proved too tough for Mika Zibanejad to handle and ended up in Tampa’s hands. But Zibanejad bailed him out by jumping a passing lane, intercepting an attempt from Lightning star Nikita Kucherov and springing a rush that ended with J.T. Miller’s fourth goal of the season at the 3:31 mark. Later in the period, Soucy laid a crunching hit on Brandon Hagel that flipped possession and directly led to Alexis Lafrenière’s fourth goal, also off the rush. That made it 3-1 Rangers just a little more than seven minutes into the game.
LAF ON THE FLY. pic.twitter.com/TVKp11Kmbn
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) November 13, 2025
5. The Rangers’ first goal came from Cuylle, who is starting to look like Chris Kreider light on the power play. New York has registered PP goals in three of four games since the 23-year-old forward was moved up to the top unit, including a pair from Cuylle himself. The latest came 1:09 into Wednesday’s contest, with Adam Fox banking a pass off the back wall and Cuylle well-positioned for the finish. The Rangers have sorely missed Kreider’s net-front presence — should I point out that Kreider is flourishing with the Anaheim Ducks and tied for fifth in the NHL with five PP goals this season? — but the 6-foot-3 Cuylle may be their best option to grow into that role.
“I’m happy to contribute,” Cuylle said. “I’m pretty comfortable in front of the net, so I like that spot.”
Foxy with the shot + Cools cleans it up. 🧹 pic.twitter.com/P2nraQWFzp
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) November 13, 2025
6. Perhaps the biggest positive to come from these last two wins is the resurgence of Panarin. He was pretty down when we spoke last week, but he’s back to making plays at an impressive clip. Make it nine points (three goals and five assists) in his last four games after going the previous six without any.
“I’ll sleep deep tonight,” he quipped. “Good dreams.”
7. Much of the same can be said for Lafrenière and Vincent Trocheck, who combined for three goals against the Lightning after contributing a total of five points in Monday’s 6-3 win over the Nashville Predators. That line was humming again and on ice for four of the Rangers’ five even-strength goals in Tampa. (It’s worth noting they allowed four high-danger chances, which was the worst total of any New York line.) Trocheck’s return after missing 14 games with an upper-body injury has not only made the entire lineup deeper, but it’s also allowed Panarin and Lafrenière to play more freely. He’s a responsible two-way presence with ample offensive capabilities, and their history together has allowed them to hit the ground running.
That line was a revelation for the Rangers in 2023-24, but it was broken up for extended chunks of time during last season’s team-wide nosedive. They seem very pleased to be getting a chance at redemption.
“We have a lot of chemistry,” said Trocheck, who scored twice Wednesday. “Last year, we were in and out of linemates. It wasn’t as consistent. But I think anytime we’re away from each other, it doesn’t matter how long of a time, when we get back together, we know each other’s tendencies so well and we have such good chemistry that it’s easy to kind of pick up where we left off.”
8. Sullivan didn’t touch that line all game, but he made one noticeable tweak involving Cuylle and rookie Gabe Perreault. He swapped the young wingers late in the second period, elevating Cuylle to play on the top line with Zibanejad and Miller while dropping Perreault down with Conor Sheary and fellow rookie Noah Laba.
On the surface, it might feel like a head-scratcher. After all, Sullivan just said on Monday, “I don’t know that it makes a whole lot of sense to call a player up like (Perreault) and put them in a bottom-six role.” But it made sense within the context of the game. Cooper was matching up his high-powered top line of Guentzel, Kucherov and Brayden Point against the Zibanejad-Miller line, and with the Rangers protecting a lead, Sullivan opted to replace the inexperienced Perreault with a proven defensive forward in Cuylle. That’s a move I could see him making again if a similar situation arises.
“We just felt like that’s a tall task for a young kid that hasn’t played a whole lot in the league,” Sullivan explained. “And so if that was going to be the match, we thought it made more sense to have a guy like Will play with J.T. and Mika in that circumstance. So some of it was just based on the feel of the game, but some of it was just from a matchup strategy standpoint.”