The Madison Square Garden crowd got what it had waited all week to see, Philadelphia’s Wayne Simmonds repeatedly punched in the head and bleeding above his left eye.
Then, the Rangers really laid into their rival.
Still playing without Ryan McDonagh, who suffered a concussion on a sucker punch from Simmonds eight days earlier, the Rangers energized the bloodthirsty crowd and backed their captain by attacking the Flyers forward in the game’s first minute, following with a more decisive 3-1 beatdown Sunday night for their fifth win in the past six games.
“There’s no doubt that guys were sticking up for Mac and what happened in Philly,” coach Alain Vigneault said. “I can’t say I’m displeased about seeing that, but I am most pleased about how we played and the fact that we won the game.”
Anxiously awaiting Simmonds’ arrival, the fans erupted in boos when he entered 26 seconds into the game, then segued to cheers 13 seconds later as rookie defenseman Dylan McIlrath dropped his gloves and squared off with Simmonds.
“I don’t think there was anyone in the building that didn’t know it was coming,” Derek Stepan said.
The predictability didn’t take away from the passion of the players or the crowd, reveling in the lengthy, evenly matched fight between McIlrath and Simmonds.
“It was pretty clear. I wanted to send a message. I wanted to stick up for my teammate, our captain, our best player,” McIlrath said. “I think it was important to get a start and I think that definitely helped it.”
The visiting villain embraced his role, screaming at the Garden crowd as he skated towards the penalty box, but Simmonds said he wasn’t bothered by the Rangers’ old-school approach.
“I wanted to come in and just play hockey, worry about that later, but obviously they wanted to do something about that,” Simmonds said. “I’ve got no problem with that, it’s the way the game is played.”
Another bout took place 20 seconds later — between Tanner Glass and Philadelphia’s Ryan White — and within the game’s first five minutes, each team had three players squeezed together in its penalty box.
“I think you could feel the building, it was electric for the first few minutes,” Marc Staal said. “We hadn’t had one of those in a while here. It made for an intense night.”
The duels were done, but the Rangers (32-18-6) remained physical, setting the tone with a hard-hitting first period and taking the lead on Derick Brassard’s wraparound at 5:08, tying a career-high with his 19th goal of the season.
The Flyers’ offense couldn’t do much until late in the second period, when a pair of Rangers penalties revived a stagnant attack. But even that wasn’t enough against a suddenly strong Rangers penalty kill — foiling the first 10 minutes of Philadelphia’s power play — and an always strong Henrik Lundqvist, who nearly recorded his second straight shutout.
Lundqvist, who didn’t play when the Rangers’ four-game win streak was snapped Friday night, made 21 saves before allowing a meaningless goal with 9.7 seconds left on a 6-on-4 Flyers’ power play. After losing their first two meetings of the season with the rival Flyers, the Rangers have won the past three matchups.
“There was the boys will be boys in the first period, then guys got down to playing some hockey,” Vigneault said. “Our penalty killing was real good and when they had some looks, Hank made some big saves.”
The Rangers increased the lead after Derek Stepan buried his 11th goal of the season on a wide-open net midway through the third period, set up by a beautiful backhand pass from Zuccarello through two defenders. A few minutes later, Zuccarello found Stepan again, giving the Rangers a 3-0 lead with 6:06 remaining.
The knockout punch had landed.
“There’s no doubt that what Dylan did there and Tanner also were a big part of the emotion that was in this game,” Vigneault said. “It was a hard-fought game.”
