Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic
The Rangers’ recent five-game uptick has been a promising sign for the wildly disappointing team that’s in danger of going from the Eastern Conference final last season to sitting out the playoffs this year.
They’ve gone 3-1-1 following a four-game losing streak just before the New Year, and that’s moved them to within five points of eighth-place Columbus in the East.
Still, they’ll need to leapfrog five teams to get into playoff position- a daunting task for a team that’s been in a rut most of the season and hasn’t won consecutive games since a three-game winning streak in mid-November.
Recent signs, though, indicate all may not be lost.
“I think we went through a stretch where we were playing some bad hockey and we didn’t deserve to win games,” Reilly Smith said after Thursday’s hard-fought overtime win over the Devils at Madison Square Garden. “I think over the last little bit since Christmas we’re doing enough to give ourselves a chance to win every night. [Thursday] was a great example of that. It was probably one of our better games since the start of the year… As a group of five, we defended as well as we have in a long time.”
They’ll try to bring that momentum on the road with them, as the Rangers are set to open a three-game Western trip in Las Vegas on Saturday.
After facing the first-place Golden Knights, the Rangers will visit Colorado and Utah before returning home to play Columbus.
“We have to build off it,’’ said Smith, who assisted on Sam Carrick’s game-winner Thursday night.
To do so, they’ll have to maintain the defensive intensity they showed Thursday when they limited the Devils to 23 shots — the fewest amounts of shots allowed in over a month — easing some of the pressure on Igor Shesterkin, who played his first game after missing four straight following an upper-body injury.
They also showed some grit after being embarrassed by the Devils in the two previous matchups between the teams, during which the Devils outscored the Rangers 10-1.
And they finished the game strong, dominating the third period and then winning their first overtime game of the season after displaying little fight for much of the previous month.
And it will help if they keep up the special teams play they displayed versus New Jersey, as they scored multiple power play goals for just the second time this season and killed all four of their penalties after giving up four power play goals in their previous three games.
“We talked about it before the game, how special teams can 100 percent make a difference inside a hockey game,” head coach Peter Laviolette said. “The power play does its job and the penalty kill goes out and does its job. If you’re successful on both, your chances of winning the game go up drastically.”
The power play goals Thursday, after Artemi Panarin said the Rangers changed their look with a man advantage in the win, has helped the team score 19 goals this month, the most in the league heading into Friday’s games.
