Montreal Canadiens edge past New York Rangers 3-2
Carey Price turned aside 20 of his 31 shots in the final period, as the Montreal Canadiens held on to take a 3-2 victory over the New York Rangers, at Bell Centre on Saturday night.
Tomas Plekanec and Andrei Kostitsyn lit the lamp for the Canadiens, who have won four of their last five games against their original six rivals in the 2010-11 season. James Wisniewski earned two assists, while Roman Hamrlik
also tallied a goal in the win.
Brian Boyle and Mats Zuccarello netted goals for New York, who have won four of their last five games going into Saturday's play-off. Henrik Lundqvist was dented for three goals on 41 shots in loss.
The Rangers got on the board first to take a 1-0 lead seven minutes into the opening period. Boyle pushed the disc past the Montreal goaltender Price from the side of the net during a goal mouth scramble.
Unfortunately, New York played some of their worst hockey of the 2010-11 season in the first two periods, giving Montreal three goals in as opening period minutes. Montreal capitalised on two power-play chances, and then added
an even-strength marker to create all the offence it needed for the victory.
The Canadiens equalised the game at 1-1 late in the first period. The play was set up by James Wisniewski who sent a nice pass to Hamrlik. Hamrlik fired a shot from the top of the left circle, which struck New York defenseman
Dan Girardi on its way past Lundqvist.
Wisniewski was proud that his team got the job done eventually. He said, “I think we might have sat back a little bit, and then they kind of took it to us a little bit. We were protecting the two-goal lead instead of keeping
our pedal to the metal, but the main thing is we got away with two points.”
Montreal then took the lead at 2-1 just one and a half minutes later. P.K. Subban decked a shot from the left point and sent a cross-ice pass to Tomas Plekanec, who stopped it with his stick and then ripped a drive into the
open net.
Sergei Kostitsyn then doubled the Canadiens advantage at 3-1 with four minutes left in the final period. He picked up a pass into the slot from Jeff Halpern, and buried a slap shot past the Rangers goalie to end a nine-game
goal drought.
Rangers Coach John Tortorella said after the game, "After the first two (goals), as a whole, we were slow on the puck. It took us a couple of periods to get going. They're a quick team. We never got near the puck. We were just
that slow. But in the third we got our legs underneath us and got to the game we needed to play. That's chip them, grind and try to hold the neutral zone."
The middle period remained goalless. Lundqvist made a nice save in the second period when Max Pacioretty drove into him to knock him down. Lundqvist jumped and pounded on Pacioretty.
New York played a fierce final period and did everything they needed to do to snatch the win, and outscored Montreal with one goal.
With 13 minutes remaining in the final stanza, Mats Zuccarello drew New York to within a goal at 3-2 game, on a pass from Derek Stepan. New York had several opportunities to tie the game, but could not take advantage.
New York Coach Tortorella then pulled Lundqvist with over a minute remaining in the game, and took a two-man advantage when Hal Gill was called for hooking Boyle behind Montreal cage with 65 seconds left. However, his side could
not take advantage.
Price made a great pad save on a Boyle backhander from the slot with 20 seconds left. The Montreal netminder also made a straggling stop on Wojtek Wolski’s backhand in the final seconds to preserve the win.
An excited Price, in a post-match interview, said, "They had a strong third, and they came to work, but our guys did the job of holding them off. We sat back a little bit, but got the job done."
New York ripped 21 shots in the final period, and were out-shot 16-6 in the first period, 13-6 in the middle period and 41-33 overall.
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