Playoffs - Thu, 23 May - Results

Boston v NY Rangers 3-4 - Game 4 - The New York Rangers will not go down quietly. They will instead go to Boston for Game 5. Chris Kreider scored the winner 7:03 into overtime as the Rangers came back from a two-goal deficit to beat the Boston Bruins 4-3 on Thursday night, staving off elimination in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Game 5 is Saturday at TD Garden (5:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, TSN, RDS). The Bruins lead the best-of-7 Eastern Conference Semifinal series, 3-1. Rangers coach John Tortorella made some drastic lineup changes for the must-win game. He scratched Brad Richards and Arron Asham and inserted a pair of grinders, Kris Newbury and Micheal Haley, to play on the fourth line with Derek Dorsett. As a result, Kreider was bumped up into a second-line role to play with Rick Nash. The two hooked up on the game-winner. Nash came down the right side and found Kreider's stick blade with a hard pass toward the slot. Kreider had position on Bruins rookie defenseman Dougie Hamilton and redirected the puck high to Tuukka Rask's blocker side to give the Rangers their first overtime win of the 2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs and hand Boston its first overtime loss in this postseason. For Kreider, it was his sixth career NHL postseason goal and third game-winner. Henrik Lundqvist gave Kreider a chance to be the overtime star by making seven saves in the extra session. He finished the game with 37.

In a somewhat shocking turn of events, the Rangers' power play helped them keep the series going. Brian Boyle tied the game at 3-3 with a blocker-side shot from the slot 10 minutes into the third period. It was New York's first power-play goal since Game 4 against the Washington Capitals and snapped a 0-for-23 drought. New York is 3-for-42 on the power play in the playoffs. The Bruins were lamenting their mistakes and miscues in the losing dressing room. They had a 2-0 lead on power-play goals from Nathan Horton and Torey Krug, but Rask fell down in the crease and didn't get enough leverage with his right leg tucked behind him to stick his stick out far enough to stop Carl Hagelin's slow, trickling, deflected backhanded shot from the slot at 8:39 of the second period. Stepan scored the next big goal when he swiped the puck from an unsuspecting Zdeno Chara and wrapped it around the left post to tie the game at 2-2 with 18:45 to play in regulation. Tyler Seguin was hoping he had erased the mistakes when he scored his first goal of the playoffs to give the Bruins a 3-2 lead 8:06 into the third period, two seconds after Ryan McDonagh's goalie interference minor expired. However, the Rangers got a power play 49 seconds later when the Bruins were called for too many men on the ice. New York made it count.

Chicago v Detroit 0-2 - Game 4 - The days of thinking this was going to be a rebuilding year for the Detroit Red Wings are over. The days of thinking this was going to be an amazing finish to an incredible season for the Chicago Blackhawks, well, those could be numbered. Jakub Kindl scored a power-play goal midway through the second period Thursday night and Jimmy Howard made 28 saves, stealing Game 4 at Joe Louis Arena from the top-seeded Blackhawks in a 2-0 victory and a 3-1 lead in this Western Conference Semifinal series. The seventh-seeded Red Wings could finish a most improbable upset of the Presidents' Trophy winners Saturday at United Center (8 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, RDS). After falling behind three times in the Western Conference Quarterfinals to the second-seeded Anaheim Ducks, the Red Wings have won five of their past six postseason games. Chicago began this season with a record 24-game streak without a regulation loss. The Blackhawks lost only seven times in regulation in the 53 games (including a first-round series victory against the Minnesota Wild) before this series, but they've now lost three in a row to the rival Red Wings, all in regulation, and have never won a postseason series after losing three of the first four games. This is also the first three-game losing streak of any kind for Chicago this season. Kindl put the Red Wings in front with a power-play goal at 10:03 of the second period. Johan Franzen shot the puck from the right wall and hit it Justin Abdelkader in front. Abdelkader kept Niklas Hjalmarsson from clearing the puck by playing it to the left wall, then won a battle for it behind the net when Kindl sent it along the boards. Abdelkader left the puck for Pavel Datsyuk, who eschewed the simple stuff try from behind the net, and deked Marcus Kruger out of position in the process, before the puck worked its way back to Kindl, who shot it through a screen provided by Abdelkader. It was Kindl's first career Stanley Cup Playoff goal. Defenseman Carlo Colaiacovo, who sent a D-to-D pass to Kindl, also collected his first point of this postseason.

The goal came with one second left on a penalty to Chicago captain Jonathan Toews, the second of three straight penalties he took in the period. It also ended Chicago's perfect penalty-killing streak, the Blackhawks had erased 30 consecutive extra-man chances to start this postseason. Toews has not scored a goal in this postseason. He has been asked about it every time he meets with the media, which, as the guy who wears the "C" on his sweater, is often. He was visibly upset about two of the calls, and his physical battle with Zetterberg continues to be one of the highlights of the series. The two captains have jostled after the whistle on multiple occasions. Meanwhile, Chicago's power play remains a problem. The Blackhawks scored on their first man-advantage of the series midway through the first period, but the Red Wings have killed off 14 straight Chicago power plays. The Blackhawks had three chances in this contest, the first two for either team and then one in the final five minutes of regulation. What's worse is they put only one shot on goal with the man advantage and none during the final power play. In fact, after Howard corralled a point blast from defenseman Duncan Keith with 5:49 left in the third to get the Red Wings to the final TV timeout, the Blackhawks did not register another shot on goal. Daniel Cleary added an empty-net goal with 38.2 seconds remaining to send the standing-room crowd of 20,066 into a frenzy. The Blackhawks created several great chances in the first period. But just as he was in the previous two games, Howard was outstanding. He turned aside all 14 shots he faced, including top-level chances by Toews, Sharp and Patrick Kane. While Chicago players were breaking in alone on Howard, those are all shots he can see. The Blackhawks had few chances near the crease during scrums, and second chances again were hard to come by. The Blackhawks dominated Game 1 en route to a 4-1 victory, but the Red Wings returned the favor in Game 2 with a 4-1 triumph of their own. Game 3 was an evenly played contest, but one six-minute spurt from Detroit and the combination of a controversial no-goal call on Chicago followed by a world-class snipe by Datsyuk gave the Red Wings a 3-1 victory and their first lead in a series in this postseason. The Red Wings, younger than they've been in a long time, continue to improve as this postseason moves along. For the Blackhawks, this is certainly not going according to plan.

San Jose v Los Angeles 0-3 - Game 5 - Anze Kopitar was struggling to put the puck into the net. Slava Voynov was having issues defensively. The Los Angeles Kings looked ready to drop a game at home for the first time in this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs. But a physical 60-minute effort in Game 5 of the Western Conference Semifinals turned those notions on their ear. Kopitar broke out of his scoring slump with a late second-period goal and Voynov added a seeing-eye goal on point shot early in the third to propel the Kings to a 3-0 victory night against the San Jose Sharks on Thursday night. Jonathan Quick made 24 saves for his third shutout of this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs as L.A. took a 3-2 series lead. The Kings can advance by winning Game 6 on Sunday at HP Pavilion (NBCSN, TSN, RDS). After back-to-back 2-1 losses at San Jose, the Kings stepped up their game to a level the Sharks couldn't match. Los Angeles came out hitting everything in sight, the Kings finished with a 51-24 edge in hits, and extended its home winning streak to a franchise-record 13 games, including six in a row in these playoffs. L.A. has won its last seven playoff games at Staples Center, including the Cup-clinching 6-1 win against New Jersey last June. Six Kings registered at least four hits. Dustin Penner bumped Logan Couture so hard Couture's helmet came off, and Matt Greene knocked down T.J. Galiardi in a tone-setting opening period in which L.A. was credited with 24 hits to San Jose's 12. Quick earned his seventh postseason shutout and passed Kelly Hrudey as the franchise leader in playoff wins with his 27th. He was masterful in the third period, making his best stop of the night on Joe Pavelski's shot from the right side with 40 seconds left. Quick has stopped 313 of 330 shots in the postseason for a .948 save percentage. San Jose coach Todd McLellan didn't recognize Quick's performance as the difference after San Jose found itself on the losing end of a low-scoring game following back-to-back 2-1 wins in Games 3 and 4. San Jose needed to live off its power play but went scoreless on three chances. The line of Joe Thornton, Brent Burns and T.J. Galiardi were a combined minus-4 and Thornton put three shots on goal. Couture was a minus-3. Although Thornton won 20 of 29 faceoffs, Los Angeles was better than 50 percent (37-35) on draws for the first time in the series.

Though Thornton won 69 percent of his draws, it was a faceoff he lost to Trevor Lewis that led to Voynov's goal 53 seconds into the third period. Lewis muscled the puck back to Voynov, who fired a shot through traffic and past Antti Niemi for his second goal the series, helping to atone for key turnovers in Games 3 and 4. Sustained pressure off a San Jose turnover led to Kopitar's goal. Voynov pinched and Kyle Clifford sent a shot from the right point that squirted cleanly to Kopitar, who easily nudged it into the open net with 1:52 left in the second period. Kopitar's last previous goal was Game 4 in the conference quarterfinals, which ended a 19-game scoring drought. The Kings could have enjoyed a first-period lead if their shooters had been on target, both Kopitar and Voynov missed the net on great chances. San Jose spent most of the period icing the puck and getting knocked down. The Sharks put a wrinkle in their lineup and went with seven defensemen as Jason Demers played forward in place of the scratched Tim Kennedy. McLellan didn't say whether he would make any more changes for Game 6, but did say extending the series to a seventh game would be a 20-man job.