Igor Shesterkin’s teammates owe him a dinner or two on the New York Rangers’ upcoming road trip.

The Rangers were outshot, outshot and almost completely outshot by the Ottawa Senators at Madison Square Garden on Friday night. The only thing they weren’t was dominated – because Shesterkin practically stood on his head from the national anthem to the final horn, finishing with 40 saves as the Rangers held on for a match. 2-1 victory.

Artemi Panarin scored 3:03 into the game and Alexis Lafrenière made it 2-0 with a power play goal early in the third period. Adam Gaudette’s goal at 12:28 of the third period was the only one of Ottawa’s 89 shot attempts to find the back of the net.

The rest of the night belonged to Shesterkin, who helped the Rangers kill the five advantages of the Ottawa man – this is no small feat against a team that started the evening ranked second in the League in power play (42.9 percent).

It could be argued that the Rangers were just as bad against the Senators as they were three nights earlier in a game 5-3 road loss to the Washington Capitalswhen they were dominated 46-19 and outplayed 84-49. Friday’s shot attempts were 89-34 and the Rangers were outshot 20-5 in the third period. Shesterkin got help from his teammates, who blocked 25 shots, but the 28-year-old improved his position as the highest-paid goaltender in NHL history.

It was the 15th time in his career that Shesterkin made 40 or more saves; the Rangers are 13-1-1 in these games.

“He’s the best goalie in the league and we’re lucky to have him,” Lafrenière said, “but we don’t want to give him that much work.

Related: Where the Rangers and their Metropolitan Division rivals stand heading into November

3 takeaways from Rangers’ 2-1 win over Senators

Here are three key takeaways from Friday’s game.

1. “Igor!” “Igor”

Every “Igor” chant from the sold-out crowd at the Garden was well deserved. Shesterkin essentially stole two points from his team. He’s been as sharp as any goaltender in any NHL game this season, stopping early shots, limiting rebounds and battling through traffic in front of him.

Even his teammates enjoyed seeing a special performance.

“Just spectacular,” defenseman K’Andre Miller said. “Everyone is sitting on the bench praying that he makes another one of those saves, and he keeps making it. Obviously we’d like to clean up our defense a little bit, but we like who we have there.

His most spectacular save came late in the second period, when he robbed Claude Giroux at point-blank range, then looked him down. He also made three saves in two seconds during a power play midway through the third period, one against Brady Tkachuk and two against Josh Norris.

“Those power play saves were crazy,” Lafrenière said.

2. A win is a win, but…

Yes, the Rangers left the Garden ice with two more points. But they are playing with fire. After packing the net in their first six games, the Rangers were outscored 10-8 in splitting their last four games.

What’s more alarming is that they’ve been outshot in all four games – and heavily outshot and outshot in the last two.

“It’s good to have a goalkeeper who can make those saves, but that’s not what we’re looking for,” said coach Peter Laviolette. “It’s good that he’s on top, but we still need to do a better job.”

The Senators kept the Rangers pinned in the defensive zone for much of the second period. They ended up outscoring New York 13-4 and had a 19-3 advantage in scoring chances, according to Natural Stats Tip.

“At one point in the second period, I didn’t like everything,” Laviolette said. “I thought we stopped skating. I just gave them too many chances.

The Rangers split two games this week in which they were dominated. Without Shesterkin, they would have been kicked out of the building twice.

“We know we can play better,” Lafrenière said. “’Shesty’ was unreal all over again. He made some massive saves for us, and I don’t think we were very good defensively. We get two points, but we all know we can play better, that’s for sure.

3. Still need a lot from the top six forwards

The trio of Panarin, Vincent Trocheck and Lafrenière scored the first goal on a quick turnover, and Lafrenière got the second with the number 2 power play unit. Otherwise, the first six attackers were almost invisible.

The Panarin-Trocheck-Lafrenière trio had more gifts (eight) than shots on goal (seven). Mika Zibanejad’s apparent No. 1 line between Chris Kreider and Reilly Smith produced three shots on goal and gave up the puck four times. In total, they combined for half of the Rangers’ 24 giveaways.

This is not a formula for winning hockey games consistently.

“We all know we played a little too much defense tonight,” Lafrenière said. “We have skills in the room. We all want to play offense, so that’s not where we want to be. We just have to be a little better and a little stronger in battles.

John Kreiser covered his first Rangers game (against the California Golden Seals) in November 1975 and still continues… Read more John Kreiser

Mentioned in this article: Alexis LaFrenière Artémi Panarin Igor Shesterkin New York Rangers Ottawa Senators Pierre Laviolette

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