Penguins finally oust Rangers

Anaheim wins third straight against Nashville.

The Pittsburgh Penguins ended their postseason slump against the New York Rangers emphatically Saturday, lighting up Henrik Lundqvist in a remarkably easy 6-3 rout in Game 5 to win the series 4-1 and advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Rookie Bryan Rust scored twice during a four-goal burst in the second period, and Matt Murray made 38 saves for the Penguins. Pittsburgh which outscored the Rangers 14-4 over the final three games to gain a measure of revenge after New York ended the Penguins’ seasons each of the past two years.

“We are obviously all aware of what’s happened in the past,” Rust said. “There are guys who obviously weren’t there. We wanted to fight harder to make sure that didn’t happen like two years ago when the team was up 3-1 and they lost that lead and ended up losing the series. We wanted to make sure that didn’t happen.”

Matt Cullen, Carl Hagelin, Conor Sheary and Phil Kessel also scored for the Penguins to end a miserable and brief postseason for Lundqvist, who stopped just 17 of 23 shots and failed to make it to the third period for the third time in the series.

Rick Nash, Dominic Moore and Chris Kreider scored for the Rangers.

(At) Ducks 5, Predators 2: Ryan Garbutt scored the go-ahead goal in the second period for Anaheim, which beat Nashville for the first win by a home team in the first-round series, which Anaheim leads 3-2.

Nashville had won the first two games in Anaheim before the Ducks tied it with two wins on the Predators’ home ice.

David Perron scored the tying goal earlier in the second and assisted on Garbutt’s goal. The Ducks added three goals in the third.

Miikka Salomaki and Ryan Johansen scored for Nashville.

(At) Blackhawks 6, Blues 3: Down 3-1 after one period, Chicago rallied for five unanswered goals to send the series back to St. Louis for Game 7 on Monday.

Andrew Ladd and Marian Hossa each had a goal and an assist, Artemi Panari and Jonathan Toews each had two assists, and Corey Crawford finished with 25 saves after giving up three goals to the Blues in the first 20 minutes.

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