Chris Kreider scored twice to move into third place on the New York Rangers career goals list, Jonathan Quick made 28 saves to continue his stellar start and the Blueshirts beat the Anaheim Ducks 4-1 on Friday night.
After Jimmy Vesey broke a 1-1 tie with 8:15 left in the second with his seventh goal, Kreider tipped the puck past Lukas Dostal on a power play for his second of the game and 16th of the season to make it 3-1 with 3:41 left in the period.
The 32-year-old Kreider has 281 goals — 100 on the power play — to move past Adam Graves on the franchise list. Only Hall of Famers Rod Gilbert (406) and Jean Ratelle (336) have more.
Krieder’s first goal of the game gave him 500 career points, making him the 12th player to record that milestone with the Rangers and the eighth skater from the 2009 draft to reach it. Kreider has 11 goals in his last 21 games.
Quick, the 37-year-old netminder who joined New York as a free agent last summer, is 9-0-1.
Adam Edstrom scored in the closing seconds of his NHL debut for the Rangers. The 23-year-old Swede, who is 6-foot-7, was a sixth-round selection by the Rangers in 2019. Edstrom was recalled from Hartford of the American Hockey League to replace late-scratch Nick Bonino.
Mika Zibanejad also scored for the Rangers. Adam Fox and Artemi Panarin also had two assists to help the Rangers rebound from a 7-3 home loss to Toronto on Tuesday night.
Brett Leason scored for Anaheim. The Rangers are 8-2-1 in their last 11 games against Anaheim, which lost for the 13th time in 14 games.
The injury-depleted Ducks, who fell to the Islanders 4-3 on Wednesday night, continue their four-game trip with visits to New Jersey on Sunday and Detroit on Monday.
New York is 11-2-1 against teams from the Western Conference this season and 7-0-0 against Pacific Division opponents.
After Leason opened the scoring with 6:30 left in the first, Kreider tied it with 2:54 left in the period with an assist to Zibanejad.
Zibanejad added a power-play goal with 4:34 left in the third — his ninth of the season — with an assist to Panarin, who has a team-best 41 points and points in 23 of 28 games this season.
Rangers defenseman K’Andre Miller missed this second-straight game because of personal reasons.
