Rangers blanked by Bruins in fight night at Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden hosted a throwback night at the fights, an old time hockey tussle between the Rangers and Boston Bruins on Friday night.

In a game that featured quite a few hard hits and a couple of old-fashioned fights, the Bruins outlasted the Rangers, 1-0.

Boston also beat the Rangers 3-2 on Wednesday at the Garden. The Bruins earned their 10th victory of the season (10-1-2) while dealing the Rangers (4-6-3) their third straight loss.

Nick Ritchie’s second period goal held up as the winner as Boston goaltender Jaroslav Halak — the ex-Islander —made 21 saves to earn the shutout. Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin stopped 29 of 30 shots.

The teams are scheduled to see each other again in two weeks, when Boston comes back to the Garden for another two-game set Feb. 26 and 28.

Playing without leading scorer Artemi Panarin, out of the lineup with a lower body injury, the Rangers’ goalscoring woes continued as they were shut out for the second time during the week. They began the week with a 2-0 loss to the Islanders on Monday. In their last three games, they’ve managed just two goals.

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Panarin, who has five goals and 10 assists on the season, is “day-to-day’’ according to coach David Quinn, after apparently suffering the injury in Wednesday’s overtime loss to the Bruins.

The good news for the Rangers is they may have gotten a break with the timing of Panarin’s injury. Sunday’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers was postponed because, as of Friday, the Flyers have seven players on the COVID-19 list. And the next game is Tuesday against the Devils, who are still currently shut down because they have 18 players on the COVID list.

With Panarin out, No. 1 pick Alexis Lafreniere stepped into his spot on the second line, with center Ryan Strome and right wing Kaapo Kakko. And Colin Blackwell, who missed four games with an upper body injury, re-entered the lineup and took Kakko’s spot on the third line, with Brett Howden and Phillip DiGiuseppe.

After a scoreless first period, the Bruins drew first blood — on the scoreboard — when Ritchie whacked in his own rebound for his fifth goal of the season at 9:27 of the second. Igor Shesterkin hugged the post and made the save on Ritchie’s first shot, but as he swooped around behind the net, Ritchie collected the rebound and banked it in off Shesterkin’s back to make it 1-0.

Before the game had even begun it started with a confrontation when Mika Zibanejad and Boston’s Brad Marchand both refused to exit the ice after warmups until the other left. The two stared at each other from opposite ends of the ice for several minutes, until Marchand finally stepped off and Zibanejad followed.

The game got chippy in the second period as the Bruins wrestled control. It started before the goal, when Jacob Trouba hit Jakub Zboril and Bruins teammate Charlie McAvoy took exception. McAvoy, the Long Beach native, charged at Trouba, who was going to be sent off for a roughing penalty against Zboril. Trouba and McAvoy exchanged punches, with Trouba getting the better of McAvoy. The officials assessed both players roughing minors, rather than fighting majors.

On the faceoff after Ritchie’s goal, Brendan Lemieux and Trent Frederic fought, exchanging some haymakers, and later, Pavel Buchnevich, not noted as a fighter, dropped the gloves with Boston’s Jeremy Lauzon, who got a 10-minute misconduct in addition to his fighting major. Altogether, the teams combined for 46 minutes in penalties in the second period, including two fights, and three roughing calls.

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.