The sweep of the NHL schedule from Thursday night starts in St Louis where the visiting New York Rangers eked out a 2-1 win over the Blues.
Henrik Lundqvist made 35 saves, most of them stellar, as he stopped breakaways and giveaways seemingly all night long.
The 35 saves give him the most in franchise history and his 30th win of the season moves him into third for 30-win seasons at 10.
Henrik Lundqvist set franchise and league marks in win over Blues – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“You know the names I’m up there with and obviously it’s a huge honor,” Lundqvist said. “Growing up, those guys were guys I was watching and now I’m up there with wins. To me, it’s just a sign of I’ve been given a chance for a lot of years. This organization, when I came, I’ve been lucky to play with a lot of good players and been able to have a competitive team every year. I’m really happy about that.”
Chris Kreider scored the game-winner early in the third period.
“It was a hard work, it was an effort play,” Kreider said. “[Lindberg] had a guy on his back basically the entire way up the ice. He got dragged down and is still able to make the play.”
Lundqvist had stopped Scottie Upshall on a breakaway seconds before Kreider’s goal.
“I thought he was going to go butterfly on me and I tried to get it up above his pad on the glove side,” Upshall said. “I knew [Ryan] McDonagh was coming down on me. He’s a big goalie. He’s big in his net, he makes key saves at key times and he made some good stops down the stretch.
“Those are plays in the game that are momentum-changers. For us, I think we carried most of the momentum in the second and in the third. That play ends up being the play of the game. Unfortunately, we’re on the other side of that. It [stinks]; it’s tough.”
Tanner Glass was credited with the Rangers fist goal on a tip of a Dan Girardi wrist shot for the right point.
“This is a tough building,” Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said. “That’s a real strong team there. We got timely saves and we were able to get a couple of goals.”
For the Blues, key players remain on the sideline and their offense has sputtered of late.
“Their goalie outworked us,” Hitchcock said. “Their goalie was more determined than we were. We didn’t bear down around the net. We had opportunities around the net and their goalie outworked us.
“… We’ve got to see a change here. Living on playing well and working hard, we’ve got to see another gear, a little determination and hunger around the net if we expect to score goals. You’re not going to get soft goaltending like we got in a couple games where we scored goals. This is focused teams right now with focused goaltending. We’re going to have to be a lot more aggressive.”
In Vancouver, the Canucks over powered the Ottawa Senators, 5-3.
Matt Bartkowski tied the score and Jake Virtanen scored the game-winner in the third period to rally the Canucks past the Senators who needed a win to keep pace in the east.
“You’ve got to demoralize a team that is in that kind of position they’re in, and we didn’t do that,” Ottawa defenseman Marc Methot said. “With a team like this, it was up to us to get that extra goal or be a little tighter in our own end at the start of the third period.”
The Senators came out flat in the third, thinking they had the game in hand.
“We had the lead going into the third and we just came out flat,” Ottawa goalie Craig Anderson said. “They took momentum, and that was the night. We couldn’t get the momentum back in the third and weren’t able to generate much.”
Emerson Etem had two goals for the Canucks.
Ryan Miller made 27 saves in the win.
For many Canucks players it may have been an opportunity to showcase talent as Vancouver is expected to be selling on trade deadline day.
In Toronto, the Carolina Hurricanes dropped a 3-1 decision to the Maple Leafs.
Trade bait, PA Parenteau, had a goal and assist in the third period to lead the Leafs.
“I try not to think about (being traded) too much,” said Parenteau, 32, who has 97 goals and 259 points in 406 NHL games. “I am aware it is out there, but I am taking things day to day, game to game, and we’ll see what happens. It has been a few weeks now that we have been talking about a possible trade. I’ll just try to think about our next game Saturday night and go from there.”
Jonathan Bernier made 30 saves for the Leafs who are changing players faster than under garments.
Roman Polak and Nick Spaling were traded to the San Jose Sharks on Monday.
Meanwhile, the Canes are two points back of the Pittsburgh Penguins for the final wild card spot in the east.
“It doesn’t matter where they are in the standings, it is just frustrating to not play as well as we needed to play,” Carolina’s John-Michael Liles said. “We got outplayed in the first period and we didn’t get our legs under us until probably the second, and it ended up costing us.”
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