There Is Finally Hope For The Rangers

Hope.

The Garden roared with excitement, New York Rangers players celebrated with joy and for the first time in a long time, it felt like there was hope for the Blueshirts.

Sam Carrick’s overtime goal propelled the Rangers to an emotional 3-2 overtime victory over the New Jersey Devils.

Going into this game, the struggling Rangers were finally starting to get their game back on track, but things were still far from perfect.

Unlike the previous two games against the Devils where New York lost 5-0 and 5-1 respectively, the Rangers came out firing on all cylinders and struck first with a goal from Adam Fox on the power play.

In the second period, the Rangers began to falter and suddenly trailed 2-1 with all of the momentum in New Jersey's favor.

However, the Blueshirts did not let it faze them. Artemi Panarin struck gold on the man advantage, marking their second power play goal in the game.

The Rangers pushed the tempo in the third period, going toe-to-toe with New Jersey while being able to match their speed.

The game ultimately went into overtime and after a few high-quality scoring chances from both teams, Sam Carrick scored his first career overtime goal, ending a magical night in The Big Apple.

Carrick is a player who may be overlooked at times, but has been sneakily playing some great hockey. Now, Carrick is getting all of his flowers.

“It was awesome,” Peter Laviolette said about Sam Carrick scoring the overtime goal. “He’s played some really good hockey for us lately. He’s been on the attack offensively, he hits and he does a lot of the dirty work in the defensive zone. When a guy like that scores a goal, you are really happy for him. Obviously a big goal for our team, but a big goal for him as well.”

The atmosphere was tense and it seemed as if the Rangers really needed this win tonight. Maybe one win doesn't solve all of their problems, but this team has a lot to be happy with regarding the way they played.

This could very well be the turning point in the season where New York starts to flip the script. The players certainly feel that way.