Rangers get even with Habs
Rick Nash and Jesper Fast scored, Henrik Lundqvist made 23 saves and the Rangers beat the Montreal Canadiens, 2-1, last night in New York to even their first-round playoff series at two games apiece.
New York’s win also ended a six-game losing streak at home in the playoffs going back to the 2015 Eastern Conference finals.
Torrey Mitchell scored for Montreal and Carey Price made 30 saves.
Game 5 is tomorrow night in Montreal before the series returns to Madison Square Garden on Saturday night.
The Rangers, who gave up the tying goal with 18 seconds left in the third period of Game 2 before losing in overtime, stopped Montreal in the final minutes in this one.
After a lackluster performance in a 3-1 loss in Game 3, the Rangers came out aggressive early.
Lundqvist kept it scoreless as he stopped Andrew Shaw on a breakaway midway through the first.
About a minute later, Canadiens defenseman Andrei Markov misplayed the puck along the boards and Fast grabbed the loose puck and slid it through the legs of Price for an unassisted goal at 11:39 to open the scoring.
The Canadiens tied it late in the period. Alexander Radulov eluded the check of Brady Skjei near the Rangers’ bench and passed the puck to Mitchell, who started a 2-on-1 break with Shea Weber, and Mitchell scored into an open net with 1:23 remaining. Radulov earned his fourth assist of the series on the play.
The Rangers controlled the play for most of the second period as the Canadiens had only one shot on goal in the first 11 minutes.
Nash gave the Rangers a 2-1 lead early in the second. Ryan McDonagh kept the puck in the zone and sent a nice pass to Nash near the front of the net and he slipped a backhand past Price at 4:28 for his second of the series.
Blue Jackets 5, Penguins 4— Markus Nutivaara, William Karlsson and Boone Jenner each had a goal and an assist and host Columbus held on to beat Pittsburgh and avoid a sweep in the best-of-seven playoff series.
Jack Johnson and Josh Anderson also scored for the Blue Jackets, who were able to outlast the Penguins when they pushed back hard in the second and third periods and then got a shorthanded goal from Jake Guenztel with 27 seconds left in the game.
Sergei Bobrovsky had 27 saves to help the Blue Jackets get their first playoff win in three years and their first-ever in regulation.
The Penguins now lead 3-1 in the best-of-seven series, which returns to Pittsburgh for Game 5 tomorrow night.
Patric Hornqvist, Ron Hainsey and Tom Kuhnhackl also scored for Pittsburgh, and Marc-Andre Fleury, pressed into service because of an injury to Matt Murray at the start of the series, had 29 saves.
Columbus got offense from its lower lines, building leads of 3-1, 4-2 and 4-3 before Jenner poked in a goal amid heavy traffic 5:37 into the third period for a 5-3 lead. Pittsburgh got the late goal but ran out of time.
Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella scratched veteran winger Scott Hartnell on his 35th birthday, replacing him in the lineup with Lukas Sedlak, who returned from an injury.
Sharks 7, Oilers 0 — Joe Pavelski and Logan Couture each scored two goals and host San Jose rebounded from back-to-back shutouts in emphatic fashion, beating Edmonton to tie their first-round playoff series at two games apiece.
After being throttled by the younger and faster Oilers the past two games, the Sharks went back to the same successful formula that carried them to the Stanley Cup finals a year ago.
Pavelski scored on a pair of deflections, including one just 15 seconds into the game for the fastest playoff goal in team history, the previously dormant power play scored four times and San Jose held Connor McDavid off the score sheet for the second straight game. Now they will try to carry that over into Game 5 in Edmonton tomorrow night.
Patrick Marleau, Marcus Sorensen and David Schlemko also scored for San Jose, Brent Burns had three assists and Martin Jones made 23 saves for his fourth playoff shutout. It all added up to the most lopsided playoff win in Sharks history and biggest shutout win in the NHL in 10 years.
Cam Talbot was pulled after allowing five goals on 24 shots and the frustration boiled over for the Oilers with Leon Draisaitl drawing a game misconduct for spearing Chris Tierney.