Ranheim Lifts Surging Whalers Past Rangers

Paul Ranheim scored two goals, including the tiebreaker with 2:07 left, to lift the Hartford Whalers to a 7-5 victory over the New York Rangers Monday night.

The Whalers, whose 4-0 start is the best in the 17-year history of the franchise, got an unexpected offensive explosion this time to beat the Rangers for the second time in 10 days.

The Whalers, who had scored only eight goals in the first three games, matched the Rangers goal for goal until taking over in the final 2 minutes.

Ranheim broke a 5-5 tie when he skated across the slot and beat goalie Mike Richter with a backhander. Andrew Cassels added an empty-net goal for the final margin.

The Whalers beat the Rangers 2-0 on opening day behind Sean Burke, who made 37 stops that night. This time, Burke faced a bigger barrage as the Rangers outshot the Whalers 49-35.

Also scoring for the Whalers were Jocelyn Lemieux, Geoff Sanderson and Nelson Emerson. Sergei Nemchinov, Mark Messier, Adam Graves and Nick Kypreos scored for New York.

The Whalers scored first when Paul Ranheim’s wraparound shot glanced into the net off Lemieux’s skate at 7:49 of the first.

Whalers 7, Rangers 5

Hartford 2 2 3 - 7

N.Y. Rangers 2 2 1 - 5

First Period-1, Hartford, Lemieux 1 (Ranheim, Janssens), 7:39. 2, New York, Nemchinov 1 (Presley, Leetch), 11:30. 3, New York, Messier 1 (Verbeek, Leetch), 15:26 (pp). 4, Hartford, Sanderson 1 (Shanahan), 18:42.

Second Period-5, New York, Graves 3 (Leetch, Kovalev), 6:22 (pp). 6, Hartford, Ranheim 1 (Cassels), 10:04 (sh). 7, New York, Kypreos 1 (Verbeek), 13:45. 8, Hartford, Emerson 2 (Sanderson, Kucera), 18:22.

Third Period-9, Hartford, O’Neill 1 (Kucera, Kron), 2:07. 10, New York, Robitaille 1 (R.Ferraro, Kovalev), 15:20. 11, Hartford, Ranheim 2 (Lemieux, Nikolishin), 17:53. 12, Hartford, Cassels 3 (Ranheim, Nikolishin), 19:19 (en).

Shots on goal-Hartford 13-12-9-34. New York 14-18-17-49. Power-play Opportunities-Hartford 0 of 3; New York 2 of 7. Goalies-Hartford, Burke 4-0-0 (49 shots-44 saves). New York, Richter 2-2-0 (33-27). A-18,200 (18,200).

Sunday’s result

Los Angeles 2 1 0 0 - 3

Vancouver 1 2 0 0 -3

First Period-1, Los Angeles, Perreault 3 (Tocchet, Kurri), 8:44. 2, Los Angeles, Tocchet 4 (Tsygurov), 12:33 3, Vancouver, Mogilny 5 (Babych), 14:30.

Second Period-4, Vancouver, Oksiuta 2 (Mogilny, Babych), 3:09. 5, Vancouver, Gelinas 2 (Lumme, Linden), 4:49. 6, Los Angeles, Granato 1, 8:32.

Third Period-None.

Overtime-None.

Shots on goal-Los Angeles 6-6-10-0—22. Vancouver 14-10-9-3—36. Power-play opportunities-Los Angeles 0 of 2; Vancouver 0 of 3. Goalies-Los Angeles, Dafoe 2-0-2 (36 shots-33 saves). Vancouver, McLean 0-1-2 (22-19).

A-19,024 (19,056).<