The three-game sweep starts in St Paul where the visiting New York Rangers stopped the Minnesota Wild’s five-game win streak with a 3-2 win. The Rangers clinched the 
Metropolitan Division with the victory.
“That’s part of our different goals that we set at the start of the season,” Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said. “Now, we’ve solidified home ice, we’ve won our division, and we’ll see if we can’t get it done in our conference.”
After taking a high stick in the second period and getting repaired on the bench, J.T. Miller scored the game-winner for New York on a redirect of a Ryan McDonagh pass in the third.
“Our last three, four games we haven’t had good starts and that was a main focus, and sure enough we had a good one tonight,” McDonagh said. “We found ourselves in a battle in the third period, but found a way to get one through them there at the end and we really defended well.
Rick Nash tied personal best with 41st in win over Wild – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“They’ve got a lot of skill and size and speed up front and I thought we did a good job of keeping them to the outside and not giving them too many quality looks.”
The Rangers did get the Wild on a rusty night as they had played since Saturday.
“I thought our two biggest challenges were, one, the layoff, and two, the cushion we’ve built and all the questions we’ve had to answer about the playoffs,” Wild coach Mike Yeo said. “With all the urgency we’ve had, the amount of games we’ve had … I don’t want to say it’s been easy to prepare, but you don’t have to look too far back to see the things that are making you successful.”
In St Louis, the Blues clinched a playoff berth at the expense of the Calgary Flames, 4-1.
The Blues had lost five of six heading into Thursday.
“That was impressive to watch from my end,” St. Louis goalie Jake Allen said. “It could have been a lot higher score, but their goaltender (Jonas Hiller) played great. What an effort from the guys. Coming down to the wire, clinching a playoff spot, a couple of our key players (Alexander Steen and Vladimir Tarasenko) out, guys stepped up tonight. It was impressive.”
Jaden Schwartz, Paul Stastny, Patrik Berglund, and Jori Lehtera scored for the Blues.
“It’s nice [clinching] on home ice,” said Stastny, who has 51 points in 43 games against the Flames. “Now the next step for us is get better until April 15, or whenever the playoffs start, but our focus is trying to get home ice.
“We worked hard at both ends. I know it’s cliche-ish, but we held on to the puck a little more. We tried making some plays throughout all four lines, and I think as a team we played pretty sound hockey, and then even when it was a one-goal game, just kept going.”
The Flames now have more heat on them with the loss and the Los Angeles Kings win over the Edmonton Oilers Thursday night in LA.
“We were the much better team in the first two periods; their goalie kept them in it, and then we needed our goalie in the third,” Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said. “Calgary just hangs around and Calgary had some great chances in the third, and our goalie held us in that first 10-12 minutes.”
In Columbus, the Blue Jackets continued their torrid pace by winning a franchise record eight straight Thursday night, this time over the New York Islanders, 4-3 in the skills in the competition.
“We got a point but I thought we deserved better,” Islanders captain John Tavares said.
John Tavares disappointed in loss to the Blue Jackets – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
That may be but the Isles surrendered a two-goal lead to the Jackets and are now 2-6-2 in their last ten.
“I thought we played a pretty good road game,” Tavares said. “Giving up a two-goal lead late is obviously disappointing, but if you look at the way the game was going, it easily could have been 4-1.
“[Strome] hit the post and it didn’t go in. The tying goal it hit about three guys and went right to him. Even the second [goal] had eyes.”
And no one is going to look giving up a big especially against the Blue Jackets who are keyed in late in the season.
“Jack Johnson‘s goal really energized us,” Columbus coach Todd Richards said. “It got the crowd into it.”
Johnson scored to make it 3-2 in the third before Ryan Johansen tied it up at 16:17 to the send arena into a frenzy and the Isles to the talent portion of the game.
“I just had to whack it in,” Johansen said. “I was happy to see it go across the line.
“We were building momentum and eventually got them back on their heels where they were in more of a defensive mode. We were taking chances, pinching and throwing everything at them. Sometimes it pays off.”
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