Playoff Results - Tue, May 27, 2014

NY Rangers @ Montreal 4-7 - Rangers Lead Series 3-2

The Montreal Canadiens needed all of Rene Bourque's hat trick plus a couple more goals Tuesday to stay alive in the Eastern Conference Final. Now they're one win away from hosting a Game 7 for the right to go to the Stanley Cup Final. The Canadiens chased New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist in the second period and won a wild Game 5, 7-4 at Bell Centre. Bourque scored two of Montreal's three second-period goals and their first in the third. The Rangers lead the best-of-7 series 3-2 with Game 6 at Madison Square Garden on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, RDS). Game 7 would be Saturday at Bell Centre. New York has not won a Stanley Cup Playoff series in fewer than seven games since the 2008 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals (five games against the New Jersey Devils). Montreal has twice come back to win a series after trailing 3-1; the last time was the 2010 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals against the Washington Capitals. Bourque, who had one goal in his previous 10 games, bracketed his two goals in the second period around the Rangers' three in a span of 4:24. Bourque scored the game-winning goal with a blocker-side shot past Rangers goalie Cam Talbot at 15:10 of the second, 58 seconds after New York erased Montreal's 4-1 lead with a goal by Chris Kreider. Bourque scored his hat trick goal at 6:33 of the third, putting Montreal ahead 6-4. It was the first hat trick by a Canadiens player in a conference final since Guy Lafleur on May 1, 1975 against the Buffalo Sabres. Montreal had not scored seven goals in a playoff game since defeating the Hartford Whalers 7-4 on April 27, 1992. Rick Nash, Derek Stepan and Kreider scored consecutive goals for the Rangers after coach Alain Vigneault replaced Lundqvist (four goals allowed on 18 shots against) with Talbot 8:58 into the second period. Vigneault said he didn't consider putting Lundqvist back in the game for the start of the third period with the Rangers trailing 5-4. Afterward, Lundqvist sounded like he didn't want to go in. Pacioretty, Alex Galchenyuk, Tomas Plekanec and David Desharnais scored for the Canadiens, who built a 4-1 lead by 6:54 of the second period. Andrei Markov chipped in with three assists, and Dale Weise and Lars Eller each had two. Canadiens goalie Dustin Tokarski stopped 23 of 27 shots. Stepan scored two goals after missing Game 4 with a broken jaw. He played with a plastic guard attached to his helmet to protect his injury. Kreider had a goal and three assists, Nash had a goal and an assist, and Ryan McDonagh had two assists. The Canadiens never panicked or appeared rattled when the Rangers rallied in the second period. They did so without Therrien using his timeout following Kreider's game-tying power-play goal at 14:12 of the second period, which came with Tomas Plekanec in the penalty box for embellishment. Therrien said he could sense "the attitude on the bench was good," and Canadiens defenseman Mike Weaver said the team was calm. Gallagher made perhaps the play of the night with his assist on Pacioretty's goal. Gallagher was falling as he made a spin-o-rama move to get himself away from Rangers defenseman Marc Staal on the left-wing half-wall, but managed to make a tape-to-tape backhand pass across the zone to Pacioretty, who scored 3:44 into the second period for a 3-1 lead. Any potential third-period comeback by the Rangers was hindered with 9:39 remaining, when defenseman John Moore leveled Weise with an illegal hit. Weise's helmet popped off and he had to be held up by Montreal defenseman P.K. Subban. Moore received a match penalty, which carries a five-minute penalty and an automatic suspension from further competition until Commissioner Gary Bettman rules on the issue, according to Rule 21 of the NHL Rulebook. Moore has a hearing scheduled for Wednesday with the NHL Department of Player Safety for an illegal check to the head. Weise left briefly, but Therrien said he was cleared by the medical staff so he returned and finished the game.

Dan Girardi: "Obviously they're going to have life after a win like that. It was kind of like Game 1 for us, we had a lot of life going into the next game. We have to find a way to hopefully have a great start at home in Game 6. Hopefully we'll have a chance to wrap it up at home."

Lundqvist: "The battle level has to be a little bit better. I have to be quicker. I was a little slow. But I think as a group we have to come back with a better performance. Yeah, I know there's a lot of focus on me, but I think we all have to step up here. It was better to keep Talbot in there, for me to get a little break there and start thinking about the next one. Of course I was hoping for us to get back in the game, and we got close, but now we're going home for a Game 6 and it's going to be exciting and a great challenge for us. I was just not good enough. It's hard to analyze it this quickly, but it was a combination of a couple of things. We start the game with taking a penalty and it kind of puts us on our heels a little bit. Just bottom line all of us need to be better, starting with me. It was better to keep Talbot in there, for me to get a little break there and start thinking about the next one. Of course I was hoping for us to get back in the game, and we got close, but now we're going home for a Game 6 and it's going to be exciting and a great challenge for us."
Brad Richards: "We're not even worried about that stuff. We'll try to win it at home. [The Canadiens] probably got a little bit of hope, I would imagine, but it doesn't change how we think. We have to worry about ourselves and our game plan. We don't play like that and we won't play like that next game. Great situation coming home. We've won two of three here [in Montreal]; sometimes they're bound to get some bounces and they created them. It's a tough building to win three in a row in. So we'll go home and be a lot better structurally and detailed-wise in our building."
Bourque: "It's just nice. I think most importantly, obviously, was to extend the series and get a win for our team, and I was just happy to have a good game. It was just nice to get that lead again. We worked hard to get the 4-1 lead and they played well, they came back ... and that was an important goal for our team."
Brendan Gallagher: "He loves this time of year. He comes out and he's a competitor. He's enjoying the opportunity we have. And he's a leader. He's leading by example out there to score not only three goals, but very timely goals. It was big. The composure level that we had, and just the leadership we have in this locker room, nothing really needed to be said. We understood why it was happening. We weren't playing very good hockey. We got away from our game plan. We tried too many hope plays and it cost us. They took advantage of it. We just needed to get back to doing what made us successful earlier in the game."
Michel Therrien said of Bourque: "He was a force out there. On the forecheck, he took the man. He was moving his feet. He was going hard to the net. He's a very good scorer, so definitely that was a great performance by him."
Pacioretty: "We showed our resilience."
Vigneault: "John is definitely not the type of player to try to hurt someone, but it was a late hit and it was the right call on the ice."



The players, coaches and systems change, but the New York Rangers continue to make their lives difficult in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Holding a 3-1 lead in the Eastern Conference Final with a chance to close out the Montreal Canadiens and book their first trip to the Stanley Cup Final in 20 years, the Rangers did not show up in Game 5 on Tuesday until they were down 4-1. Though they managed to tie the game during a wild second period when the teams combined to score six times on the first 15 shots, the Rangers' poor start is what ultimately did them in. The 7-4 loss puts the Rangers in a situation where if they lose Game 6 at Madison Square Garden on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, RDS), they will be forced to come back to Bell Centre and attempt to win Game 7 for a third time this postseason. The Rangers have not won a series in fewer than seven games since defeating the New Jersey Devils in five games in the first round of the 2008 playoffs. Though New York has won each of the past five Game 7's they've played, the Rangers will desperately want to avoid going for six in a row. If the pressure was on the Canadiens to keep their season alive Tuesday, it could be argued it is squarely on the Rangers to prevent a return visit by winning Thursday. One of the big storylines entering the series was Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist's poor history at Bell Centre. It was something he addressed by shining in the first two games of the series, stealing Game 2 with a 40-save masterpiece that seemingly put his demons in this building to bed. But Lundqvist was not good Tuesday when it mattered most, though he was far from the only one in a Rangers uniform who could say that. Lundqvist allowed four goals on 19 shots in a little under 30 minutes before Rangers coach Alain Vigneault replaced him with Cam Talbot in an attempt to give his team a wake-up call. It worked; the Rangers scored three times to tie it before going into the second intermission down 5-4. Rene Bourque's second goal of the game was scored 58 seconds after Chris Kreider tied the game on the power play. Down a goal with 20 minutes to play, Vigneault said he never considered putting Lundqvist back in the game with the Cup Final within reach. Lundqvist agreed with his decision. Lundqvist might have mentally checked out of the game, but the Rangers needed their backbone and leader in this situation. The chance to clinch a trip to the Final does not come along every year. In fact, it has not come along for the Rangers in exactly 20 years, ever since Stephane Matteau scored in overtime of Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final to eliminate the New Jersey Devils on May 27, 1994. The Rangers had a chance to mark that anniversary in a very special way Tuesday. Instead, they find themselves in what could be seen as a must-win Game 6 on home ice Thursday to avoid a return engagement in front of the rabid fans in Montreal. If they don't, the Rangers might find themselves with plenty of reasons to worry.