MONTREAL – After a long break of goalie speculation for the New York Rangers, the Blueshirts shut out the Montreal Canadians 2-0 in their own house.
Rangers net minder Henrik Lundqvist stopped all 31 shots he faced for his 10th post season shutout of his career while Carey Price stopped 29 shots he received.
Henrik Lundqvist made 31 saves in Game 1 win over Habs – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
- “I think this was one of our better games as a team in a long time,” Lundqvist said. “We had a plan going into this game how we needed to play and we executed it perfectly. Montreal is one of the better teams in their transition game. A lot of games we played up here, they beat us on odd-man rushes and breakaways. And today, we get the early goal and after that we played a smart game.”
The Canadians had a record of 3-0-0 against the New York Rangers this season and looked to improve on that record in front of a crazed Montreal crowd. The Canadian faithful did their part, booing Chris Kreider in the first period or making their presence known when Lundqvist touched the puck. Neither sneer seemed to bother the Blueshirts as they skated to their first win of the post season.
The first scoring came from Rangers Tanner Glass when he back-handed a shot bar-down off a face-off win from center Oscar Lindberg.
“This is such a tough building to win in, and it’s important for us to have a good first period and a good first few shifts, and we were able to weather their storm early, and that first goal was big for us,” Glass said.
There was much consideration about who the 12th Ranger would be going into their first playoff game of the 2016-17 year. Between their Russian sniper Pavel Buchnevich and fourth line grinder Tanner Glass, head coach Alain Viganeult needed until puck drop to figure out who would be the definitive fourth liner.
Vignaeults decision turned out to be the bet decision when Glass scored 9:50 into the first period.
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The game turned out to be a lot of back and forth as the 1-0 scored would hold up until Michael Grabner scored an empty net goal with 1:10 left in the game to secure the Rangers the first win of the series.
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