Authorities in Detroit are looking for a 38-year-old man with a mustache who is said to be wearing a red, white and blue mask.

His name is Jonathan Quick.

The timeless goaltender pulled off a heist Saturday at Little Caesars Arena, snatching away what should have been a heartwarming win for the host Red Wings and somehow turning it into a 4-0 victory for the Rangers.

Analysis: What should the Rangers do with their D pairings?

Quick posted his 61st career shutout behind an absolutely impressive 37 saves, many of which came with a high degree of difficulty. It started right from the first lap, when Alex DeBrincat got away from the rush and the future Hall of Famer stopped him from close range.

But the heat really turned up in the second period. Detroit blasted the Rangers with 18 shots midway through the 20 minutes, and that doesn’t include attempts from Patrick Kane and Dylan Larkin that hit the posts. Rapid pushed Vladimir Tarasenko after slipping through the Rangers defense unguarded on the run at 6:05, then made five consecutive big saves during a 1:51 stretch later in the period.

The Red Wings were credited with 16 high-danger scoring chances in total, according to Natural Stat Trick, and were denied on all of them.

The historic performance improved Quick to 3-0 through four appearances with a .964 save percentage and 1.17 goals against average, both leading the NHL.

With the 1-2 strike of his goalkeeper and Igor Shesterkin, which is off to a great start in itselfcovered many of the Rangers’ hard-to-miss spots. This is the biggest reason I stay at 9-3-1.

Hurry up strange man and more problems

Quick flat-out stole the win on a night where the team in front of him was frankly outmatched.

Head coach Peter Laviolette implored the Blueshirts to play with “more bite” following a embarrassing 6-1 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday, but missed much of Saturday’s contest as they managed just 24 shots, including just 14 in the first two periods.

They struggled to advance pucks in their own zone — an undeniable theme in the first month of this season — and had no forecheck to speak of on the occasions they got it behind the Wings. The most glaring problem, however, was a series of Detroit odd-man runs fueled by New York turnovers.

Rangers were charged with 20 frees, five of which came off Vincent Trocheck’s stick, and were often caught flat-footed once possession was reversed. They hung Quick out to dry multiple times, leaving him to stare down an uneven number of opposing skaters as his last line of defense.

It’s a topic Laviolette addressed in Friday’s practice, but those fixes were hard to come by the next day.

“A lot of times when they come back, the odd man out is rushing because something happened in the offensive zone,” Laviolette said. “The forecheck either didn’t show its teeth in the initial battle, or we lost the third man, or the D got out of points, or we didn’t reload fast enough — and suddenly , the teams are fast now, and they come back pretty quickly. You have to be detailed in the offensive zone with what you’re doing when the puck is in question you’re doing, or you run into those situations where it turns the other way pretty quickly.”

The struggling defensive pairing of K’Andre Miller and Jacob Trouba was at the center of many of those blunders. They’ve had some tough games since coming together last week, with Saturday being added to that list. The Rangers were outscored, 31-12, while on the ice together in Detroit and outscored, 14-6.

The case for making changes on the back end is compelling, especially with the 14-1 Winnipeg Jets traveling to Madison Square Garden on Tuesday.

Getting out of it

Laviolette also wanted to see the Rangers show “more purpose in wanting the puck and wanting to play on the end,” but that was largely lacking in the first 35 minutes.

They were held to nine shots as the game neared that mark, but had a 1-0 lead thanks to Quick and a power-play goal by Chris Kreider. They then took control in just 48 seconds.

The fourth line scored the key goal of the night as Jimmy Vesey one-timed a feed into the back of the net from Sam Carrick to make it 2-0 with 3:08 left in the second period.

That allowed the Rangers to expire after surviving an onslaught for much of that period, with Artemi Panarin pushing the lead to 3-0 less than a minute later. His team-leading 10th goal of the season was set up by the game’s best turnaround from a new-look top line that had largely been out of sync.

Alexis Lafrenière pushed a pass into the back of the net to Mika Zibanejad, who weaved the next feed through a couple of outstretched sticks right into Panarin’s lane. The lead assist marked Zibanejad’s third five-for-five in 13 games, ending a seven-game drought in that department.

The three-goal lead helped the Rangers settle in and led to their best period in the third, with Reilly Smith eventually adding an empty netter. Clearly, there’s still a lot to clean up, but doing it after a win sure beats the alternative.

I can thank Quick for that.

Vincent Z. Mercogliano is New York Rangers beat reporter for the USA TODAY network. Read more about his work at lohud.com/sports/rangers/ and follow him on Twitter @vzmercogliano.

This article originally appeared on the Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Rangers: Jonathan Quick commits a robbery in Detroit