PITTSBURGH — This was a single-game example of that karmic tug-of-war hockey teams speak about, that ambiguous idea of the difference between the results that are deserved and those delivered.
The Rangers put that old cliché into motion and worked for their bounces, getting a couple very fortunate breaks while managing to sneak out of PPG Paints Arena with a 4-3 win over the Penguins on Tuesday night.
“You get a fortuitous bounce, but you keep playing the right way, you don’t force things and don’t try go try to do it all by yourself,” captain Ryan McDonagh told The Post, referring to Pavel Buchnevich’s lucky goal at 11:12 of the third period that made it 4-3, and to his team’s ability to shut the Penguins down after that. “That’s what we talked about the whole game, and a great example of us just sticking with it.”
This meant more to the Rangers (15-10-2) than just the lucky bounce for Buchnevich, which came on a centering feed that went off the stick of spinning All-Star defenseman Kris Letang and up and over goalie Tristan Jarry’s shoulder. What they were more proud of was the ability to weather the waves of pressure the Penguins (15-11-3) inevitably sent at them and at goalie Ondrej Pavelec, who got his fourth start of the season and first since Oct. 28 after Henrik Lundqvist came down with an illness on Monday night.
Pavelec had some impressive moments while making 41 saves, facing only four shots in the first period and then 40 over the final 40 minutes. But he also knew he had to thank the iron behind him, with Evgeni Malkin hitting a post on two separate occasions — one with under two minutes after which Malkin’s hands went to his head as he skated to the corner.
“Four posts,” Pavelec said he counted. “It was nice to see I had that luck tonight. You need that to win the game.”
It seems that winning games is what the Rangers are becoming accustomed to, as well, now having taken six of their past seven and 12 of their past 15. They have been far from perfect, with quite a few defensive lapses in this one allowing the Penguins to get more than a couple of wide-open looks and take two separate one-goal leads.
But the Rangers were able to keep at it, never getting discouraged (as they did so often during their early-season malaise) and counter at the right times.
“If they go up 3-1, that would be really tough against this team in this building,” Pavelec said. “So we scored the goals at the right time.”
Despite dominating most of the first period, the Rangers were down 1-0 when Conor Sheary scored at 15:13, but were able to tie it on Boo Nieves’ first NHL goal just 96 seconds later. Phil Kessel gave the Penguins a 2-1 lead at 7:11 of the second, but Jesper Fast answered when he finished a rebound off a great Brady Skjei breakaway at 12:26 to make it 2-2.
Then Mats Zuccarello got a semi-gift, a little shot coming up the right wing and trickling through Jarry’s legs to make it 3-2 going into the third. But the Penguins quickly tied it 3-3 on a power-play breakaway by nemesis Patric Hornqvist, setting the table for the bounce for Buchnevich that was the decider.
Well, only after the Rangers were able to shut it down with the help of Pavelec. They worked to get to that point, and worked to stay there.
So how much of that was really luck?
“In the third, we basically did what we had to do to get the job done,” coach Alain Vigneault said. “We’ll take the two points and move on.”