The Rangers went back-to-back and belly-to-belly with their 4-2 win over the Hurricanes on Thursday. If your view was that Henrik Lundqvist was just a component of Wednesday's win, yesterday he was the primary reason why New York picked up the victory. Lundqvist stopped 45 shots in the win, picking up the slack for the so-so defense in front of him. The question now is does David Quinn roll with Lundqvist on Sunday or start Alexandar Georgiev versus the Panthers?

Game recap:


Lineup:

Rangers lines for warmups:
10-16-17
20-72-89
48-21-24
14-28-42
D pairs:
25-8
18-77
55-23
So, Haley and Skjei are out.

— Colin Stephenson (@ColinASteph) November 7, 2019

1) Lundqvist - enough superlatives may not exist to describe his performance last night. Was brilliant throughout, especially in the first when he stopped 22 shots and then down the stretch, making several key saves. Deserved first star, in fact, maybe all three stars. Look at some of the numbers in the tweets below and they are staggering. I get he is aging and only able to turn back the clock so many times, but when he is on, he is really on and a brick wall between the pipes.

As the NT Post noted, Lundqvist is now one win away from tying Curtis Joseph (454) for fifth place on the NHL’s all-time wins list, and three shy of tying Grant Fuhr (868) for 10th place on the league’s all-time appearances list.

Henrik Lundqvist made 40 or more saves in a game for the 36th time in his NHL career; in those 36 games, he has posted a 20-7-9 record, along with a 2.03 GAA, a .954 SV%, and 4 SO. #NYR

— NYR Stats & Info (@NYRStatsInfo) November 8, 2019

Check out this almost unbelievable stat from the Rangers: Henrik Lundqvist has started both games of a back-to-back set 85 times in his NHL career. In the second game of those 85 sets, Lundqvist is 54-23-8 with a 2.12 GAA, a .928 SV%, and 9 shutouts. Those numbers are incredible.

— Dan Rosen (@drosennhl) November 8, 2019

The New York Rangers won this game. The Carolina Hurricanes had 90 shot attempts / 47 shots / 4.95 xG in all situations. Henrik Lundqvist made 45 saves. #NYR pic.twitter.com/9MyguV9XUJ

— Shayna (@hayyyshayyy) November 8, 2019

2) Artemi Panarin - his marker extended his point streak to seven games (four goals, six assists). Has shown tremendous chemistry with Ryan Strome, who made a brilliant pass to Panarin for the snap shot goal. When Mika Zibanejad finally returns from his "neck" injury, Strome should move to right wing on the line with Zib and Panarin.

3) Brady Skjei - was a healthy scratch with coach David Quinn saying "he needs to be better." Meritocracy ruled here. Skjei should have been benched., The D wasn't great last night, as seen by the below, but Skjei deserved to sit. The good news also is that if Skjei does play Sunday, it won't be in place of Ryan Lindgren or Adam Fox, the latter of which tallied the clinching empty-net goal against his "former" team and was solid again last night.

The positive takeaway? Not everyone was in the negatives thanks to Howden and Lemieux! pic.twitter.com/stLKLX28gQ

— Shayna (@hayyyshayyy) November 8, 2019

If Brady Skjei is back in next game, don't expect Ryan Lindgren to be the guy coming out.

DQ on Lindgren and Adam Fox: "They did a really good job. I thought that was our best pairing all night. They answered the bell in a lot of ways."#NYR #NHL

— Vince Z. Mercogliano (@vzmercogliano) November 8, 2019

4) Pavel Buchnevich with a great takeaway and then patience while scoring his goal. Brendan Lemieux had a nice deflection on the power play on a wrist shot by Tony DeAngelo, who made sure to find a shooting lane. In addition, watch the goal by the Lemieux, he is behind the defender, which is the way a power play now is defended and seems ridiculous.

5) Kaapo Kakko - no points on the Fox goal but he was the reason for the tally. Great work on the forecheck, resulting in the bad pass turnover. In addition, he was strong throughout and gets better and better each game.

The cherry on top of a solid win pic.twitter.com/vrkUpZcobR

— Rangers on MSG (@RangersMSGN) November 8, 2019

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