Goalie Lundqvist leads Rangers to shutout
MONTREAL - Tanner Glass scored in the first period and Henrik Lundqvist made 31 saves to help the New York Rangers beat the Montreal Canadiens 2-0 on Wednesday night in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series.
Game 2 of the best-ofseven series is Friday night at Bell Centre.
Michael Grabner added an empty-net goal with 1:10 left to play.
Montreal outshot New York 16-5 in the first period, but couldn’t beat Lundqvist.
The Canadiens are looking to a avenge a sixgame loss in the first round to New York in 2014, a series in which Carey Price was injured in the opening game on a hit from Chris Kreider. This time, Kreider pulled up when barreling toward Price in the first period.
Fired up by 1960s pop star Ginette Reno’s national anthem, the Canadiens were all over New York in the opening period, but it was the Rangers who struck first 9:50 on only their third shot.
Bruins 2, at Senators 1: Brad Marchand broke a tie with 2:33 left and the Boston Bruins held on to beat Ottawa in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series.
Marchand scored off the rebound of Patrice Bergeron’s shot.
Game 2 is Saturday in Ottawa.
Frank Vatrano added a goal for Boston in his NHL playoff game, and Tuukka Rask made 26 saves. Bobby Ryan scored for Ottawa, and Craig Anderson stopped 23 shots.
Trailing 1-0 and without a shot since the first period, the Bruins had two quick ones and Vatrano beat Anderson from the high slot on the second to tie it at 4:55 of the third.
Boston was outshot 12-0 in the second and was fortunate to trail by just one.
Despite having played the least amount of any player in the first period with just 2:20 of ice time, Ryan was creating chances every time he was on the ice and nothing changed in the second.
At Penguins 3, Blue Jackets 1: Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 31 shots in a surprise start in place of injured Matt Murray and the Pittsburgh Penguins opened their Stanley Cup title defense with a victory over Columbus.
Murray was scheduled to get the nod in the playoff opener but was a late scratch after suffering a lower-body injury during warm-ups. Fleury withstood an early push by Columbus, and the Penguins responded by pulling away from the untested Blue Jackets.
Phil Kessel had a goal and an assist for Pittsburgh. Nick Bonino and Bryan Rust also scored, and Evgeni Malkin assisted on Rust and Kessel’s goals in his first game back after missing the final three weeks of the regular season because of an upper-body injury.
Matt Calvert scored for Columbus in the third period, and Sergei Bobrovsky made 26 saves.
Game 2 is Friday night in Pittsburgh.
Blues 2, at Wild 1 (OT): Joel Edmundson scored for St. Louis at 17:48 of overtime, Jake Allen made a career-high 51 saves and the Blues sneaked into Minnesota to steal Game 1 of their firstround series from the Wild.
Blues star Vladimir Tarasenko was quiet for most of the night until he drove into a crowd and threaded a pass through the Wild defense to Edmundson, who knocked in the second postseason goal of his career.
Zach Parise tied the game with 22.7 seconds left in regulation for the Wild, whose dominance was thwarted by a stellar performance from Allen.
He made the most saves ever recorded against the Wild in their 16-season history.
Sharks 3, at Oilers 2 (OT): his points streak to 15 games.
It was the first playoff game in the Oilers’ new downtown arena and the team’s first NHL postseason game in almost 11 years.
— Wire services Second Period—None. Penalties—Miller, NYR, (delay of game), 14:37; Galchenyuk, MTL, (delay of game), 15:35; Gallagher, MTL, (holding), 16:29. Third Period—2, N.Y. Rangers, Grabner 1 (Fast), 18:50. Penalties—Danault, MTL, (tripping), 14:20; Markov, MTL, Misconduct (misconduct), 19:35; Zuccarello, NYR, (roughing), 19:35; Gallagher, MTL, (roughing), 19:35. Shots on Goal—N.Y. Rangers 5-13-13—31. Montreal 16-9-6—31. Power-play opportunities—N.Y. 0 of 4; Montreal 0 of 3. Goalies—N.Y. Rangers, Lundqvist 1-0-0 (31 shots-31 saves). Montreal, Price 0-1-0 (3029). A—21,288 (21,273). T—2:30. Referees—Dan O’Halloran, Ian Walsh. Linesmen—Derek Amell, Trent Knorr. Bruins 2, Senators 1 0 02—
10— Boston Ottawa Rangers 2 1 First Period—None. Penalties—Stone, OTT, (tripping), 9:01; Marchand, BOS, (holding), 16:52; Stone, OTT, (tripping), 17:08; Pageau, OTT, (delay of game), 19:10. Second Period—1, Ottawa, Ryan 1 (Karlsson), 10:28. Penalties—Borowiecki, OTT, (tripping), 4:52; Pastrnak, BOS, (tripping), 5:55. Third Period—2, Boston, Vatrano 1 (Nash, Mcquaid), 4:55. 3, Boston, Marchand 1 (Pastrnak, Bergeron), 17:27. Penalties—None. Shots on Goal—Boston 14-11—25. Ottawa 9-12-6—27. Power-play opportunities—Boston 0 of 4; Ottawa 0 of 2. Goalies—Boston, Rask 1-0-0 (27 shots-26 saves). Ottawa, Anderson 0-1-0 (25-23). A—18,702 (19,153). T—2:31. Referees—Trevor Hanson, Brad Watson. Linesmen—Scott Cherrey, Bryan Pancich.
Penguins 3, Blue Jackets 1 Columbus 0 01— Pittsburgh 30— 1 3 First Period—None. PIT, (hooking), 17:39. Second Period—1, Pittsburgh, Rust 1 (Kessel, Malkin), 1:15. 2, Pittsburgh, Kessel 1 (Malkin, Schultz), 3:45 (pp). 3, Pittsburgh, Bonino 1 (Maatta, Hornqvist), 16:25. Penalties—Calvert, CBJ, (tripping), 2:58; Savard, CBJ, (roughing), 16:48. Third Period—4, Columbus, Calvert 1 (Anderson), 12:41. Penalties—Savard, CBJ, (interference), 5:46; Rowney, PIT, (hooking), 10:04. Shots on Goal—Columbus 16-4-12—32. Pittsburgh 3-16-10—29. Power-play opportunities—Columbus of 2; Pittsburgh 1 of 3. Goalies—Columbus, Bobrovsky 0-1-0 (29 shots-26 saves). Pittsburgh, Fleury 1-0-0 (3231). A—18,563 (18,387). T—2:37. Referees—Chris Rooney, Francois St Laurent. Linesmen—Steve Barton, Jonny Murray. Penalties—Maatta, 0