Special teams shines in Rangers' win over Chicago

The New York Rangers should thank their special-teams units for this win.

Chris Drury scored his second goal of the game with the man advantage in overtime after New York killed off 10 of 11 Chicago power plays in a 3-2 win over the Blackhawks at the United Center on Friday night.

Eleven seconds after the Blackhawks’ Andrew Ladd was sent off for high sticking,. Drury scored his 15th goal of the season by redirecting Wade Redden’s shot from the top of the slot.

Brandon Dubinsky also scored and All-Star Henrik Lundqvist made 32 saves for New York, winners of three in a row to move back atop the Atlantic Division. It was the Rangers’ first win in the Windy City since October 2000.

New York entered the game with the NHL’s second-best penalty-killing rate at 87.9 percent, and they had their work cut out for them. Included in the kills were the first four of five 5-on-3s and a continuous Chicago manpower advantage lasting 5:45 late in the second set up by a series of four Rangers minor penalties, the Associated Press reported.

“It’s tough to kill penalties like that; and to be shorthanded so much takes the flow away from the game,” Redden told the Rangers’ official Web site. “But we stuck with it. (The officials) made the calls and we had to battle through it.”

All-Star Jonathan Toews and Brent Seabrook scored for Chicago, which lost at home in regulation for the first time in exactly two months.

(…and, for what it’s worth, I did find myself rooting more for the Rangers. Hometown beats out adopted hometown.)