The Rangers use the perfect penalty shootout to get a much-needed victory over the Stars

DALLAS – A win the Rangers could celebrate was at the top of their holiday wish list.

Especially given the grueling schedule ahead before the calendar turns to 2025, the Blueshirts’ 3-1 victory over the Stars – a Western Conference contender – on Friday night at American Airlines Center was both an achievement and a triumph, which strengthened self-confidence.

Against a star-studded team like Dallas and in front of a sellout crowd of 18,532, the Rangers ended a three-game losing streak and earned their first win over a playoff-positioned team since November 19th.

“It’s huge,” Adam Fox said. “It’s obviously no secret that we didn’t like our game last month. We have spoken as a group, we know we have this within us and it takes everyone to do it. It’s not a single guy here and there. It takes everyone. Everyone I thought was fighting. We had to take this momentum with us and perform well on home ice.”

The Rangers penalty kill was the star of the show on Friday night.

To be honest, this is the only aspect of their game that was impressive during their recent 11-3 loss.

In addition to stopping all seven of the Stars’ power plays, including a five-minute stretch in the second half of the final frame, the Blueshirts’ first goal of the game was a shorthanded goal by Reilly Smith.

As a result, the Rangers have been perfect in terms of PK over the last six games.

During that period, they successfully blocked 17 power plays in a row.

Their 12 power play goals scored so far this season were the fewest in the NHL entering Friday’s contest.

And all without one of their best penalty killers, K’Andre Miller, who remains on injured reserve with an upper body injury.

“Seventeen minutes on the PK, pretty grim,” said Vincent Trocheck, who gave the Rangers a 2-1 lead late in the first period with a bullet shot from the top zone. “PK had a great performance tonight. We can add a lot of momentum to our penalty shootout if it goes like it did tonight. We have to continue to do that.”

The Rangers haven’t had many leads to defend lately, but the ones they did have didn’t last long. Dallas threw 15 shots at Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin (41 saves) in the third period alone, but Chris Kreider’s empty-net goal with just under two minutes left in regulation brought the game to a halt.

In his first appearance back in the Rangers lineup since November 25, Matt Rempe found ways to make an impact before his evening was canceled due to a five-minute elbow bump and a game-time disciplinary violation he sustained at 7:13 of the third period. ended prematurely.

Miro Heiskanen slammed into the boards, Rempe’s elbow came up and knocked the Stars’ first defender onto the ice.

A scuffle broke out in front of the Dallas bench before the referees arrived to stop the game.

“It was a little slow in the beginning for the first four or five minutes, but after that it was great,” head coach Peter Laviolette said. “The whole time I thought we were going to attack. We ended up having to kill more penalties than we would have liked, but the penalty kill was great. We scored a goal. I thought they did a great job. Shesty was great in net but the penalty was really fantastic. … It was a really good win.”