NY RANGERS 4, OTTAWA SENATORS 2
The Rangers' intensity matched the grand stage in Thursday night's 4-2 Game 1 win over the Senators, but they won their first-round series playoff opener at the Garden by calming themselves down.
Holding a 1-0 lead for more than 23 minutes into the second period, the Eastern Conference's top seed almost appeared unsure of what to do with it, icing the puck seven times and relying on Henrik Lundqvist (30 saves) to keep the wheeling eight-seed Senators at bay.
"We had to grab the momentum back on our side," Marian Gaborik said.
PHOTOS: RANGERS TAKE GAME 1 FROM OTTAWA, 4-2
John Tortorella called a timeout with 10:09 remaining in the second period, the Blueshirts rolled a few solid shifts, killed one of three Senators power plays and then Gaborik swiped a clearing attempt by Ottawa defenseman Jared Cowen along the wall, juked into the middle and beat Craig Anderson (27 saves) five-hole.
Brian Boyle scored his first career playoff goal minutes later, lifting a bouncing puck into the top left corner, and New York was on its way to taking a 1-0 series lead in front of a sea of blue shirts and waving white towels.
"It's a huge part of playoff hockey is momentum swings, and I hope we learned our lesson early on this season that, OK, we settle ourselves down, we didn't get hurt, our goalie was really good at that time, and then we found a way," Tortorella said.
Suddenly, the Blueshirts' regular-season finale defeat to Washington just four days prior, which cost them the Presidents' Trophy, was a distant memory.
"It was really loud at the anthem, and I thought we did a good job of kind of controlling our emotion and not running around and being crazy out there," said All-Star defenseman Dan Girardi, who assisted on Boyle's goal. "We did job of kind of kind of harnessing their energy and using it to our advantage."
Senators defenseman Sergei Gonchar said the Rangers' ability to forecheck and force turnovers was the difference, but that was how they built their lead – thanks primarily to two assists from Artem Anisimov and a hard-hitting effort by the captain Ryan Callahan, who plowed into former teammate Matt Gilroy before burying Jesse Winchester later in the same shift and scored the Rangers' first goal.
The Blueshirts protected it with an imposing Big Three of Girardi (26:41), Ryan McDonagh (25:04) and Marc Staal (23:06), who is healthy going into this postseason compared to last year, when he was playing but suffering from symptoms of a concussion sustained that February.
"I think (the difference was) the way we defend and the way we clog up that middle of the ice," Staal said of containing the Senators, who got popped in two late from Daniel Alfredsson and Erik Condra. "Obviously we're not happy with the couple goals near the end, but for the most part we did pretty well in our own end."
New York got Ottawa out of its run-and-gun game and imposed its will in front of a sharp Lundqvist, beating the Senators for the first time at the Garden this season after going 1-2-1 in four head-to-head meetings.
Anton Stralman picked up an assist and so did rookie Carl Hagelin, who stripped Nick Foligno behind Ottawa's net and fed Richards for a wrister with 17:45 remaining that put a nail in the Sens' coffin.
The result was the Rangers' stars lifted them to a win their first series opener at home 1996. They improved to 28-12-2 at home this season, and 111-83-2 all-time at the Garden in the playoffs.
But really, this win was about the Rangers making the Senators play their game, imposing their will and when it started to slip, reminding Ottawa why they are the one-seed in the first place.
"Even the odd-man rushes, they had some, but for the most part, we eliminated them," Gaborik said.
Game 2 is set for Saturday at 7 p.m.
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