Rangers Recap: Dubi, Christensen, and Lundqvist lead the way as Rangers pound Bruins 3-1

The Boston Bruins and New York Rangers have had some great battles in their eighty year plus rivalry, it's really a shame they only meet four times a year under the current NHL schedule format.

Henrik Lundqvist continued his domination of the Bruins, stopping 29 shots and leading the Rangers to a 3-1 win. Henrik is now 13-3-2 lifetime against Boston.

Michael Del Zotto took advantage of a rare mistake by Zdeno Chara, made a beautiful move driving to the net to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead eight minutes into the game. 

"Dubi made a great play drawing that first defender and he dropped it back to me, and Chara came after me and I just tried to go wide, I was able to beat him and go to the net. I kinda knew Tim Thomas likes to challenge a bit, so I went 5-hole, and I was lucky enough for it to go in for me." Zots said when asked about the goal.

Later in the period, with the Rangers on the power play, Marco Sturm was breaking into the Rangers zone shorthanded, was held up by Ales Kotalik, and awarded a penalty shot. Lundqvist kept Sturm out of the net, however, to keep the Rangers on top after one despite being outshot 11-7.

Brandon Dubinsky, who assisted on the Del Zotto goal, scored his eighth of the season in the second period, with Erik Christensen getting the assist. Dubinsky would add an assist in the third period, and now has 23 points on the season. Rangers dominated the second period, outshooting the Bruins 21-3, and picking up three power plays.

Christensen continued his strong play by scoring just thirty seven seconds into the final period, a wrister past Tim Thomas to give the Rangers a 3-0 lead. He now has seven points in the last six games for the Rangers, not bad for a guy plucked off the scrap heap. He told MSG he feels like this may be his last chance in the NHL, and he is playing like it.

Like Monday night at MSG, the Rangers carried a shutout into the waning minutes of the game, and just like Monday night, they were unable to keep the Bruins off the score sheet. Dennis Wideman scored with under four minutes remaining to deny Lundqvist again.

The Bruins again mounted a furious attempt to come back in this game, but the Rangers and Lundqvist were able to make the 3-1 score stand up.

All in all a complete effort by the Rangers, who managed to stay out of the penalty box until the third period, showed strong skating legs all day long, and played a good physical game. Rangers defense joined the play a little more in this game, probably taking advantage of the lack of firepower on the Boston side with Marc Savard and Patrice Bergeron both out with injuries. Rangers defense pinched often in this game, mostly on the right wing boards.

More after the jump........

Final Thoughts:

• Our own Ranger Smurf made a good point in the open game thread: With Tim Thomas on the bench for the extra attacker, Marc Staal hit the post with the net empty, seems like the Rangers have done that about 3 or 4 times this year.
• I don't want to say they take a lot of dives, but the Bruins do seem to "embellish" a lot, don't they?
• All of a sudden, the Rangers are in 6^th place in the conference, just a point behind Boston. They are 6-1-3 in their last 10.
• So far, with the schedule not in their favor for January, they've managed to pick up seven of ten possible points this month. Not bad at all.