Artemi Panarin and Alexis Lafreniere scored first-period goals and Igor Shesterkin made 24 saves and the host New York Rangers snapped a four-game losing streak with a 2-1 win over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.

The Rangers were coming off Saturday’s 3-2 loss to Capitals on Saturday afternoon and a 1-4-1 overall start to 2024. New York survived constant pressure by the Capitals in the third — and failing to score on five power-play chances of their own — to emerge with the victory.

“Nobody wants to lose hockey games. The urgency grows,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. ”I thought our guys showed up and played well. We stayed focused and fought through to get us a win.”

T.J. Oshie scored for Washington, which completed its season series with New York. Both teams won twice.

Panarin scored his team-best 27th goal of the season 50 seconds into the game with assists to Vincent Trocheck and Jacob Trouba. Panarin leads the Rangers with 59 points and has points in 35 of New York’s 42 games this season. The goal was Panarin’s 400th point with the Rangers.

Trocheck has 13 points, including five goals in his past eight games and 17 points in his past 14 games.

Lafreniere scored his 11th goal of the season with 50 seconds remaining in the opening period, snaring his own rebound after Washington goaltender Charlie Lindgren made an acrobatic save. Defenseman Braden Schneider assisted.

“It was good to get the win, a big two points,” Lafreniere said. ”We had some big saves from Shesty.”

Lindgren, older brother of Rangers defenseman Ryan Lindgren, played for the second straight day. He made a fabulous glove save on Chris Kreider at 15:23 of the second with the Rangers on a 5-on-3 power-play and stopped Jimmy Vesey point-blank at 6:27 of the third after Vesey stripped Max Pacioretty of the puck in the Capitals zone.

The first-place Rangers are 10 points ahead of the Capitals after splitting the weekend pair of games.

”Everyone played a really hard-fought game. To come up short was very unfortunate,” said Charlie Lindgren, who is 5 years older than Ryan. “They are way up in the standings. We have to keep pushing.”

Washington narrowed the deficit to 2-1 at 11:03 of the second period when Oshie scored his fourth off a goalmouth scramble in front of Shesterkin. Linemates Dylan Strome and Pacioretty assisted.

“I liked our game tonight,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. “I loved our second period. I loved our third period. Our penalty kill was great. I just would have liked to have found a way to get that second one.”

Shesterkin denied Oshie at 13:22 of second and stopped a furious sequence in his crease in the closing moments of the middle period. The 28-year-old netminder, who won the Vezina Trophy in 2021-22, made seven saves in the third period to improve to 17-10-0 in his fifth NHL season.

“These points are crucial right now, a lot of good teams in Metro,” Ryan Lindgren said of the tightening division race. ”It’s fun playing games back to back. They get pretty heated.”

red wings 4, maple leafs 2 >> Andrew Copp broke a 2-2 tie with a goal at 18:20 of the third period to lead visiting Detroit. It was Copp’s eighth goal of the season, and was followed by an empty-net goal from Lucas Raymond at 19:41. It was No. 12 for Raymond.

Dylan Larkin scored his 17th and Daniel Sprong his 11th for the Red Wings. Pontus Holmberg scored his second of the season for Toronto and Mitchell Marner tallied his 18th for the Maple Leafs.

ALL-STAR game COACHES >> Rick Bowness of the Winnipeg Jets and Rick Tocchet of the Vancouver Canucks will join Boston’s Jim Montgomery and Peter Laviolette of the New York Rangers as the head coaches for the NHL All-Star Game.

The league said Sunday the coaches of the teams with the highest points percentage in each of the four divisions through Saturday’s games will guide the four All-Star rosters for the Feb. 3 event in Toronto.

The Central Division-leading Jets (28-10-4) have the best points percentage in the NHL at .714. The Pacific Division-leading Canucks (29-11-3) are next at .709, ahead of the Atlantic Division-leading Bruins (.702, 25-8-9) and the Metropolitan Division-leading Rangers (.667, 27-13-2).

Laviolette is making his fourth All-Star appearance as a head coach (2011, 2015, 2018), tops among active head coaches in the league. Montgomery is making his second career appearance after he also went last season.

Tocchet is making his second career trip to the All-Star Game as head coach (2020), to go along with four appearances during an 18-year NHL playing career. Bowness is making his All-Star head coaching debut next month.