Rangers Vs. Bruins: Rangers Take Commanding Lead In East With 3-0 Win Over Bruins
The New York Rangers went on to win their fourth straight game tonight against the Boston Bruins. This win is huge for the Rangers as it now puts them nine points ahead of the second place Bruins, and ten points up on their Atlantic Division rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers.
The game started off fairly even in the starting minutes of the first period. Just ten minutes into the first, the Rangers got their first power play of the night coming at the halfway point of the period. Once again, the Rangers made it count with a pretty, and set passing play that lead to the goal by Ryan Callahan. The goal read the same exact way as it did back in Philadelphia, with Marian Gaborik and Michael Del Zotto picking up the assists.
Nearing the end of the period, the Rangers applied some tremendous pressure on the Bruins, in their own end. With under 30 seconds left in the first, Ryan McDonagh threw a shot on net, that wound up finding the back of the net. It looked as if it deflected off of Zdeno Chara in front of Tim Thomas, and McDonagh came away with his sixth goal of the season.
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After a pretty dominant first period by the Rangers, the Bruins came into the second period pretty amped up. The Bruins wound up throwing 14 total shots at Lundqvist in the second period, while the Rangers only tossed up 5 shots. However, Lundqvist was on his game all night tonight and kept the Bruins off the board all night long.
With under three minutes to play, we had a bit of the rough stuff as Marc Staal and Milan Lucic gave each other some shots after the whistle. Both wound eventually receive matching unsportsmanlike penalties and sit for two minutes. The Rangers went into the second intermissions with a 2-0 lead, but one that they could not sit back on.
Just as in the second, the Bruins continued their constant pressure, but it would up costing them. Just two minutes into the period, Artem Anisimov broke in on a 2-on-1 with Michael Del Zotto, and put the Rangers up 3-0. Artie had great patience and rifled it over the shoulder of Tim Thomas for his tenth of the season.
About midway through the period, Dennis Seidenberg ripped a shot right off of the face-off that appeared to beat Lundqvist. However, after the refs took a look at the video, the puck got stuck on the outside of the net, and it was called no goal.
In the final minutes of the game, David Krejci broke in alone on Henrik Lundqvist, who absolutely robbed him with a huge glove save. Lundqvist would keep the Bruins off of the board for the entire game, and earned his league leading seventh shutout. The Rangers will be back in action on Thursday night against the Chicago Blackhawks, a game that the Rangers cannot underestimate.