Zuccarello to the rescue as Rangers account for Canadiens
NEW YORK — With his team trailing after a lackluster effort in the first 20 minutes, Mats Zuccarello came through in the second period to help the New York Rangers get a big series-clinching win.
Zuccarello scored twice and the Rangers beat the Montreal Canadiens 3-1 in Game 6 on Saturday night to advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals.
“He’s a competitive little bugger,” Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said. “He competes every shift. He’s become a real big part of our team, not just what he does on the ice, but he brings the team together. He came up huge for us tonight.”
Derek Stepan also scored and Henrik Lundqvist stopped 27 shots to help New York get past the first round for the fifth time in six years.
The Rangers won three straight after falling behind 2-1 to beat Montreal for the ninth time in 16 postseason series.
“It’s going to be nice, a couple days off, but it’s only the first round,” Zuccarello said after his first career multigoal game in the playoffs. “We’ve got to regroup right now and rest up and get ready for the next round.”
The Rangers will face the winner of the Ottawa-Boston series, which the Senators lead 3-2 with Game 6 on Sunday.
Alexei Emelin scored for Montreal and Carey Price finished with 20 saves. The Canadiens, winners of the Atlantic Division after missing the playoffs last year, were bounced from the postseason by the Rangers for the second time in four years. In 2014, it was in the conference finals.
“We weren’t good enough and that’s why we lost,” Mon- treal coach Claude Julien said. “But at the same time, I think there are a lot of guys that put in a lot of effort and a lot of energy in the games. At the end of it, it wasn’t pretty and we needed more.”
After being outplayed for most of the first period, the Rangers came out more aggressive in the second and outshot the Canadiens 12-8.
“We felt like we could do a lot of things better in the second (period) and we did,” Lundqvist said.
“We had more jump. We were skating more, winning more battles, and made it real- ly tough for them in their own end.”
Montreal’s Jordie Benn was sent off for holding 1:30 into the second and the Rangers took advantage with their first power-play goal in the series. Zuccarello got a pass from Mika Zibanejad, who had the overtime winner in Game 5 on Thursday night, and sent it past Price from the right circle at 2:26.
“It’s lucky,” Zuccarello said. “It’s not every day you beat Carey Price like that. It’s a nice power-play goal. About time. T