PHOTO: TT News Agency
Mika Zibanejad scored one of the goals as the New York Rangers defeated the Los Angeles Kings 4-1 at home in Madison Square Garden on Monday night.
The former longtime Los Angeles goalkeeper was also a strong contributor to the victory Jonathan Quick. He stopped 25 of 26 shots on goal fired by his former Los Angeles teammates.
Quick played big
Quick played 16 seasons for Los Angeles and won the Stanley Cup in 2012 and 2014 with the team. He finished last season with Los Angeles but was traded to Columbus, with whom he did not play a single game.
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Instead, he signed a contract with the Rangers as a free agent this summer and has since performed well as the second goalkeeper behind the New York team’s first goalkeeper Igor Sjestiorkin.
After the game, Jonathan Quick thought it was very special to face his old team.
– Before the match, I just wanted it to start. I’ve never played against them before and there were a lot of memories replaying in my head. These are guys I’ve played with for a very long time, Quick said.
Zibanejad’s goal
It was Los Angeles’ second road loss after opening the season with 11 road wins, a streak that was snapped in a 2-3 overtime loss to the New York Islanders on Saturday.
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In the night’s loss against another New York team, it was Swedish Mika Zibanejad who opened the scoring when he made it 1–0 in numerical superiority play 8.27 into the second period. Nine minutes later, Jimmy Vesey made it 2–0 for the home team.
In third reduced Phillip Danault to 1–2 for Los Angeles, produced by the Swede Adrian Kempe.
But the visitors didn’t get any closer than that and after a goal Jonny Brodzinski and Will Cuylle wrote the final score to 4–1 for the home team.
Los Angeles coach Todd McLellan didn’t think they played badly but saw reasons why they couldn’t beat Rangers.
– I don’t think we played badly. We just didn’t play well enough to give ourselves a chance to win. Five games in eight days takes a toll, McLellan said.
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