Comeback Canadiens
Plekanec ties game in dying seconds, Radulov wins it in OT as Montreal ties series with Rangers
Alexander Radulov scored at 18:34 of overtime to lift the Montreal Canadiens to a 4-3 victory over the New York Rangers on Friday night.
Radulov jammed the puck in from the edge of the crease after a feed from Max Pacioretty.
The best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarter-final is tied 1-1 with Game 3 set for Sunday night in New York.
Trailing 3-2 in the third period, the Canadiens pressed hard and finally scored with 18 seconds left, with goalie Carey Price pulled, as Tomas Plekanec redirected a Radulov feed past Henrik Lundqvist to force overtime.
Michael Grabner, Mats Zuccarello and Rick Nash scored for New York. Jeff Petry and Paul Byron also had goals for Montreal, which wasted early leads of 1-0 and 2-1.
Montreal outshot the Rangers 45-30 in regulation time and 58-38 overall.
While goals were scarce in New York’s 2-0 win in the series opener, there were three in the first period alone on Friday.
Only 4:05 in, Lundqvist broke his stick and was helpless as Petry set up in the right circle and scored stick side.
Lundqvist answered by stopping Byron on a breakaway, and then Nathan Beaulieu lost the puck at the Rangers blueline, allowing Grabner to go in alone and deke Price and score with the backhand at 13:48.
Byron scored at 15:42 when Chris Kreider lost the puck to Brendan Gallagher, who followed in after his shot was stopped to feed it in front.
A melee broke out when Steve Ott flattened Zuccarello and it was the Rangers who seemed to get a lift from it as they tied the score 9:58 into the second. With Montreal on a slow line change, Jimmy Vesey took a pass at the blue-line and sent Nash in alone for a perfect shot in off the far post.
New York went ahead at 14:47 when Brendan Smith banked a shot in off Zuccarello from the left point.
According to the NHL, Plekanec’s tally was the latest playoff game-tying goal in Canadiens history, beating a Jacques Lemaire goal in 1975 with 24 seconds remaining.