Rangers Defeat Thrashers

Jan 25, 12:00 AM

That void in the Rangers' special teams was never more evident than last night against the Thrashers after Leetch's No. 2 was hoisted to the roof of Madison Square Garden. The Rangers were 0-for-5 on the power play and needed a third-period goal, by Michal Rozsival, to force the game to overtime, during which the Thrashers had no shots.

In the shootout, Brendan Shanahan _ at 39, the same age as Leetch _ beat Johan Hedberg and Henrik Lundqvist stopped all three Thrashers attempts for a 2-1 win, sending the Rangers into the All-Star break with consecutive victories for the first time since Dec. 29-30 against Toronto and Montreal. It was Shanahan's third shootout winner of the season.

"It was a real struggle for us to come in after each period and stay positive," said Shanahan, who had moved his equipment out of his stall for Leetch to hang his.

Still, these 2007-08 Rangers haven't been able to live up to the accomplishments of their storied predecessors, who gathered on ice for a 51-minute pregame ceremony that featured Mark Messier, Adam Graves, Mike Richter and other members of the 1994 Stanley Cup championship team.

Rod Gilbert, Ed Giacomin, Brad Park, Brian Mullen, Ron Greschner, Jeff Beukeboom, Jan Erixon and Harry Howell also were among the former Rangers on ice during Leetch's ceremony.

This win, which was a battle, could put the Rangers back on the playoff track. But it was a struggle.

"These have been two good games for us. We know we have a really tough stretch after the break," Lundqvist said. "We played OK for two periods. The third we came out really strong."

Down 1-0, the Rangers _ who beat the Thrashers, 4-0, on Tuesday at the Garden _ had 10 shots in the third period on Hedberg, who robbed Shanahan with a glove save just 1:40 into the period. But two of the Rangers' youngest players, Nigel Dawes and Brandon Dubinsky, set up Rozsival, who pinched in from the left, settled Dawes' cross-ice pass and wristed the puck past a sliding Hedberg at 8:52 to tie the score with his 12th goal.

Rookie defenseman Marc Staal, the Leetch-in-waiting, was alone in front and could have ended the game there, but he missed high off Jaromir Jagr's feed.

Hedberg looked invincible in overtime, gobbling up shots as the Rangers pressed, kicking away Chris Drury's slapper and Sean Avery's close-in try. Lundqvist, however, outdueled him in the shootout.

So the Rangers (24-21-6) break for the All-Star Game tied with the Islanders for eighth in the Eastern Conference, one point behind the seventh-place Bruins.

Appearing sluggish after the late start, the Rangers failed to convert four consecutive power plays in the first period, including 1:51 on a five-on-three. Then Drury was called for hooking, a penalty that stretched into the second period. And just like that, the Thrashers _ skating without leading scorer Ilya Kovalchuk _ took the lead. Rookie Tobias Enstrom's shot trickled behind Lundqvist into the crease and was tapped in by Marian Hossa at the 45-second mark.

The Rangers, however, rallied. Shanahan had said that Leetch played his best in third periods. On this night, Shanahan saved his best for the shootout.

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