VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad each had two goals and an assist as the New York Rangers beat the Vancouver Canucks 6-4 Wednesday night for their sixth straight win.
Chris Kreider and K’Andre Miller also scored for the Rangers, who are 7-0-1 in their last eight games. Igor Shesterkin stopped 25 shots.
Andrei Kuzmenko had a goal and an assist and Curtis Lazar, J.T. Miller and Conor Garland also scored for the Canucks, who have lost three straight. Elias Pettersson had two assists and Arturs Silovs had 22 saves in his NHL debut.
Trailing 5-4, Vancouver pulled Silovs for an extra skater with 2:54 left to play. Panarin sliced a puck to Zibanejad, who sent the puck into the empty net with 1:34 remaining to seal the win.
The Canucks had pulled within one at 8:51 of the third when Kuzmenko fired a shot under Shesterkin’s glove from the top of the slot. It was the Russian’s 23rd goal of the season.
Vancouver opened the scoring 4:52 into the game as Lazar tipped Dakota Joshua's shot from the bottom of the faceoff circle for his third.
Zibanejad tied it 59 seconds later with his team-leading 28th as he faked a shot to get Silovs to move, then blasted a wrister past the rookie . It gave Zibanejad six goals during a five-game scoring streak.
New York took its first lead of the night at 7:03 when an unmanned Panarin got a pass from Jimmy Vesey and snapped a blistering shot that Silovs caught a piece of, but the puck bounced in.
Vancouver capitalized on a power play with 7:15 left in the opening period as Shesterkin lost his stick and Miller sent a snap shot sailing into the net for his 19th.
Panarin gave the Rangers the lead for good as he tipped a Niko Mikkola's long shot past Silovs from the low slot for his 20th with 4:24 left in the first.
New York pushed its lead to 4-2 at 50 seconds into the second as Kreider got a pass across the slot from Zibanejad and tapped the puck into the open net.
Kuzmenko used some dazzling stick work to get around Rangers defenseman Adam Fox, but his ensuing shot pinged off the crossbar. Garland picked up the errant puck and sent a backhanded shot past Shesterkin at 9:26 to pull the Canucks within one.
Miller fired a shot through traffic and over Silovs' glove with 6:32 left in the middle period to restore the Rangers' two-goal lead.
UP AND DOWN
The Canucks called up Silovs, the 21-year-old Latvian goalie, from Abbotsford of the AHL on Tuesday and sent G Spencer Martin down. Silovs, picked by Vancouver in the sixth round of the 2019 NHL Draft, was 21-9-4 with a .906 save percentage and 2.48 goals-against average in Abbotsford this season.
MAN DOWN
Canucks D Oliver Ekman-Larsson went down awkwardly after trying to hit Vladimir Tarasenko midway through the first period. He limped off the ice, favoring his left leg and did not return to the game.
GONE STREAKING
Kreider extended his point streak to six games (three goals, four assists). ... Zibanejad has seven goals and two assists in a five-game point streak. ... Panarin has six goals and six assists in a five-game streak. ... D Jacob Trouba has a four-game point streak with one goal and five assists.
SCORING BINGE
The Rangers have scored six goals in three straight games for the first time since 1989.
UP NEXT
Rangers: At Edmonton on Friday night in the third of a four-game trip.
Canucks: Host Philadelphia on Saturday night to finish a three-game homestand.
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