Rangers defeat Blue Jackets, become 1st team in NHL to reach 40 wins

Sillinger made it 2-1 at 3:24 of the third period, scoring a 4-on-4 goal with Shesterkin out of position after a turnover by the goalie.

Shesterkin tried to rim the puck around the corner boards up the right-wing wall, but it was picked off by Severson on the half wall. He put it toward the net with Shesterkin scrambling to get back. Sillinger deflected it off the goalie, got it back and scored.

“Very good in the net, very bad behind the net,” Shesterkin said, laughing. “I need to work on my stickhandle.”

The Blue Jackets had a power play opportunity at 5:20, when Shesterkin was called for tripping Kirill Marchenko after making a save on him. They didn’t get a shot on goal on the power play, but they had eight of the next nine shots on goal in the game.

“We had our looks,” Sillinger said. “We had opportunities to tie it up. I thought we tightened things up and we came close to getting that tying goal.”

Instead, Kreider scored into the empty net at 19:07 off a pass from Panarin to make it 3-1. Panarin also scored an empty-net goal at 19:48 for the 4-1 final and the 40th win of the season in 60 games, tying the 1972-73 Rangers for fastest to 40 wins in team history.

“That’s definitely, definitely an accomplishment, but just continue to build our game,” Rangers captain Jacob Trouba said. “There’s no real trophies handed out now. It feels great, but who really cares.”

NOTES: Panarin is the third player in Rangers history with at least four 80-point seasons with the team, joining Mark Messier (five) and Rod Gilbert (four). … Fox is the first Rangers defenseman to score at least 10 goals in three straight seasons since Brian Leetch did it in four straight from 2000-04. … Kreider has three straight seasons with at least 30 goals. He is the seventh player in Rangers history to do that, first since Mike Gartner had three straight 40-goal seasons from 1990-93.