Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are ringing!
That may well have been the theme of the first half of the game between the visiting Washington Capitals and the New York Rangers on Wednesday night.
Through the first 30 minutes of the Henrik Lundqvist at least four times, but each occasion was greeted the ping of the puck off the iron. He was beaten yes, but not shot on goal.
Lundqvist made 30 saves in the game as the Rangers posted a remarkable 4-1 win over the Caps.
The victory moved Lundqvist into fifth in the NHL for career wins, one past Curtis Joseph
“It’s an honor to be in that company,” Lundqvist said. “There are so many great goalies, a lot of them have been inspirations to me growing up. It’s been taking a little longer here the last two years to get the wins, but just got to continue to battle here. It means a lot to me, it really does. Proud feeling, for sure.”
With all the iron being pinged, the Rangers held steady for a change and then turned the game over to the kids.
After a scoreless first period, Artemi Panarin struck for two power-play markers and Pavel Buchnevich helped New York to a 3-0 lead through the early minutes of the third period.
“I know it was 3-0 at one point, but with that team you know they could score three goals in a hurry, so I think we did a good job managing that,” Rangers head coach David Quinn said. “I think we did a good job understanding the situation. They get the power-play goal to make it 3-1, and then we come back and make it 4-1. I think that’s a good sign. We’ve all talked about us managing our emotions and managing the ebbs and flows of a hockey game, and I thought we did a really good job of that tonight.”
Evgeny Kuznetsov scored a power-play goal to ruin any chance of a shut out for Lundqvist.
“Yeah, I got lucky a few times,” Lundqvist said. “Some nights you earn that luck, I think. It was great to have that on our side tonight.”
The Rangers were 2-for3 on the power play.
“It ends up being a deciding factor,” Washington head coach Todd Reirden said. “There were some points where we could stay in that one, and we weren’t able to scratch and claw our way back.”
Brett Howden, who converted a brilliant pass from Buchnevich scored from the low slot to put the game away.
“This was a true team effort. Obviously, [Lundqvist] was really good in net,” Quinn said. “I thought we defended well, we didn’t give up a lot of crazy chances. I thought we did some really good things offensively. Our power play was good and we got a big kill when we needed it. You add all that up, and you’ve got a good chance to win a hockey game.”
[WATCH:Â All Capitals vs. Rangers highlights]
Braden Holtby made 27 saves in the loss.
.”The one thing that disturbed me from the game was our shift after the goal against,” Reirden said. “We’ve done a really good job of stopping momentum or not letting things get out of hand when the other team is making a push. Tonight we didn’t do that. That’s the one thing I take from this game.”
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