OTTAWA, Ontario – Henrik Lundqvist did his best impersonation of a brick wall on Monday night, turning aside 39 shots en route to recording his fourth career playoff shutout. Along the way, he led the New York Rangers to a 1-0 victory over the Ottawa Senators, giving his team a 2-1 series lead in their best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarter final.
“In the end, he was the rock,” Rangers’ center Brad Richards told Newsday of Lundqvist. “You knew they were going to make that push in the last five minutes and he stood tall.”
Lundqvist is amongst the NHL’s best goaltenders and is expected to be named a finalist for the league’s Vezina Trophy later this spring. He certainly looked the part of elite netminder on Monday, stopping wave after wave of Ottawa shooters throughout the game.
He saved his best play for the third period, however, when the Senators pressed hard to tie the score. The puck rarely left the Rangers’ zone in the game’s final five minutes, but time after time Lundqvist shut the door to preserve New York’s 1-0 win.
“People everywhere,” Lundqvist told Newsday of the action around his crease in the dying minutes of game three. “You try to stay calm and make good decisions; I think we all felt we needed this, we needed to close this one off.”
Rangers’ forward Brian Boyle scored the game’s only goal, snapping a loose puck past Ottawa goalie Craig Anderson seven and a half minutes into the third period. Boyle now has three goals in the series and has been causing the Senators all kinds of problems with his physical play.
“He’s playing the right way,” Rangers coach John Tortorella told the Ottawa Citizen of Boyle. “I think a lot of us are following his lead, and that’s what he’s doing now, leading.”
Dan Girardi and Ryan Callahan had assists on Boyle’s goal.
Game four of the series goes Wednesday night in Ottawa.
Contact Darcy.MacRae@prohockeynews.com
