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Thursday, April 12, 2012

Rangers Top Senators With Big 2nd Period In Game 1 (VIDEO) - Huffington Post

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Rangers Top Senators With Big 2nd Period In Game 1 (VIDEO) - Huffington Post
Apr 13th 2012, 02:32

Rangers Senators Game 1
Ryan Callahan #24 of the New York Rangers celebrates after he scored a first period goal against the Ottawa Senators during the 2012 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs.

NEW YORK -- Marian Gaborik and Brian Boyle scored minutes apart in the second period to break open a tight game, and the top-seeded New York Rangers opened their first-round Eastern Conference series with a 4-2 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Thursday night.

The Rangers, the No. 1 seed in the East for the first time since they won the Stanley Cup in 1994, shook off their 1-2-1 regular-season mark against the Senators and easily dispatched them in Game 1.

Ryan Callahan scored in the first period, Gaborik and Boyle pushed the lead to 3-0, and Brad Richards added a goal in the third for the Rangers. New York will host the No. 8 Senators again on Saturday night before the best-of-seven series shifts to Ottawa for Games 3 and 4.

Henrik Lundqvist was sharp early, stopping Jason Spezza on a partial breakaway and then turning aside Jim O'Brien, who weaved his way through the New York defense before getting off an in-close drive that was knocked away.

Lundqvist's only blemishes came in the third period. Daniel Alfredsson wrecked his shutout bid at 10:05, and Erik Condra made it 4-2 with 2:19 left. Lundqvist finished with 30 saves.

Craig Anderson stopped 27 shots, but it wasn't enough for him to maintain his perfect mark at Madison Square Garden.

The Senators dominated play throughout the second period, but a couple of late lapses turned a tight game into a virtual runaway.

Ottawa kept up constant pressure in the New York end. It just didn't produce any results. The Senators hemmed in the Rangers several times and forced a handful of icing calls. It got so bad in the middle of the second that New York coach John Tortorella was forced to use his lone timeout just to give his guys a breather after back-to-back icings.

Even with three straight power plays that spanned the first and second periods, the Senators were frustrated by either Lundqvist or players in front of him who dived to block shots from ever getting through.

After the Rangers killed a questionable tripping call against defenseman Ryan McDonagh, while they nursed a 1-0 lead, Gaborik gave his club a bit of insurance.

The Rangers' leading scorer got the puck along the right wing boards, after the Senators turned it over in their own end, and drove toward the net. He stopped short in front of Anderson, shifted the puck to either side of his stick while looking for an opening, and then slid a shot into the net to make it 2-0 with 3:36 left in the second.

Gaborik, who scored 41 goals in the regular season, had another in-close chance earlier in the period, but elected to pass instead of shoot. He did it all himself this time in netting the unassisted goal.

The Rangers spent much of the two off days before the series opener working on their anemic power play. It didn't click late in the second, while Filip Kuba served a hooking call, but New York connected 13 seconds after the defenseman left the box.

Pressure continued to mount in the Ottawa end after the power play expired, and Artem Anisimov lunged to nudge a bouncing rebound in the slot back to Boyle in the right circle. He got just enough of it to set up Boyle, who snapped in a shot with just 53.8 seconds left in the second – 2:42 after Gaborik's goal – to push the lead to 3-0.

The Senators were outshot 12-11 in the second, but it seemed much more one-sided in Ottawa's favor until the Rangers' late strikes.

Callahan was itching to play in the postseason after being forced to miss New York's first-round loss to Washington last year because of a broken ankle. He made his presence felt throughout the spirited first period.

Callahan netted the first goal of the series when he got to a rebound of Anisimov's shot from the right point at the bottom edge of the right circle and whipped the puck around Kuba along the ice and between Anderson's pads with 7:59 left in the first.

The Rangers captain also stepped up at center ice and thwarted a Senators rush when he laid a crushing hit on Ottawa forward Jesse Winchester and sent him flying to the ice with just over two minutes left in the first. Chants of "Call-ie, Call-ie" echoed through the towel-waving crowd at Madison Square Garden, that hosted Game 1 of a playoff series for the first time since the first round in 1996 against Montreal.

NOTES: Boyle, who had 11 goals in the regular season, scored five of them in the final nine games. ... The Rangers outshot Ottawa 8-2 in the second period after the timeout with 10:02 remaining. ... Lundqvist, who has never advanced past the second round, is 16-20 in 36 postseason games. ... Anderson had been 6-0 with a 1.13 goals-against average and two shutouts in his previous Madison Square Garden starts.

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