There was a playoff intense hockey game played at Madison Square Garden on Sunday afternoon. Somewhere along the way, someone forget to tell the New York Rangers and the Boston Bruins that the new NHL is all about wide-open play. Goaltenders Henrik Lundquist and Alex Auld had 64 saves between the two of them; they must have missed the NHL memo on the request for a higher goal scoring rate. Two original six teams went at it head-to-head and for an afternoon, brought us back to the glory days of hockey. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Except for the shootout, of course.

The season series between the Bruins and Rangers have all been tight affairs, with Boston coming out on top in all three previous games; one in regulation, one in OT, and another in a shootout. Having already clinched a possible tiebreaker matchup against the Rangers, this game was solely for playoff seeding, something the Rangers have been playing for over the past month and playing well. Boston was coming off a wild game with the Capitals, scoring two late 5-on-3 PP goals in a come from behind 2-1 victory. Leading up to that win, Boston had given up 19 goals in their previous 3 games, all losses, including a 10-2 drubbing by the 'Caps on March 3rd. NHL leading goal-scorer (54) Alexander Ovechkin's 1st period hat trick was part of a 6 goal Washington onslaught 20 minutes into that game. The Rangers had just come off a convincing 4-1 win over a desperate Islanders club; a game in which Henrick Lundquist seemed to suddenly find the focus which had been missing since November.

If old-time hockey is your thing, this was a game that needed to be watched. The 1st period was split pretty evenly between the two teams, with Boston holding the advantage territorially in the first half. Aided by two power plays, the Rangers were able to turn the tide offensively and put strong pressure on both the Bruins D and Alex Auld. The 2nd was more of the same, but the Rangers began to create more opportunities in the offensive zone. Once again, the 1st line of Jagr, Dubinsky and Avery was casing havoc. Jagr was skating circles around Boston's D; he must have been overjoyed to find out that Bruin's captain, defenseman Zdeno Chara was out with an undisclosed injury. In the previous matchups against Boston, Chara has simply been stuck to Jagr like glue, mostly erasing him as a scoring threat. With Avery crashing the net every chance he got and Jagr doing his thing, it seemed almost inevitable that the Rangers would score first. But Auld was Boston's best player all afternoon, even getting a little help from the crossbar late in the 1st on a Chris Drury shot.

The same could be said about Lundquist; any defensive breakdown by the Rangers, Henrik was there to bail them out...and there were more than a few. In his post-game comments, Rangers coach Tom Renney spoke of his team's "sloppy play". Although they tightened up defensively overall as the game wore on, Boston had plenty of good chances to score. Fortunately for the Rangers, Lundquist was the complete opposite; in control and completely focused, nothing was getting by him today.

Henrik saved his best for the 3rd period. At 4:44, with Bruins forward Glen Metropolit flying towards the Rangers net and center Philip Kessel already on top of Henrik near the right post, Kessel put a perfect goalmouth feed on Metropolit's stick. Lundquist had initially been playing Kessel to shoot and had to make a headlong dive back to his left to make an incredibly acrobatic glove save on Metropolit's shot. The rebound of Metropolit's shot came right to Bruins defenseman Mark Stuart in the slot, who snapped a wrister towards the fallen Lundquist. Henrik snapped up his right pad while still lying on the ice to stop Stuart cold. An awesome display of goaltending to say the least. Almost a minute later at 5:35, again Lundquist found a way to stop center David Krejci right in front. Initially Lundquist looked behind him as the puck had found its way over his goal stick, but he had gotten his pads closed quickly enough to deny Krejci.

Speedy Ranger forward Scotty Gomez was also robbed twice in the 3rd by Alex Auld. One was on a breakaway, as Auld got enough of Scotty's shot to make the save. Another came after with about 4:20 left in the game. NY forward Nigel Dawes stole the puck just inside the blue line and found a wide open Gomez in the slot. Gomez's slapshot was somehow stopped by Auld with a great left pad save.

Both netminder's continued their strong play into the overtime period and shootout. But rookie forward Nigel Dawes, who has found ways to score big goals and make critical plays during this playoff run, finally solved Alex Auld. After Auld had stopped Brendan Shanahan, Dawes skated in and found an opening low to Auld's stick side, netting the puck before Auld could react and giving the Rangers a 1-0 lead in the shootout. Lundquist continued to exhibit the stopping power of a brick wall, denying Sturm, Kessel and Krejci to give the Rangers the 1-0 win. Nigel Dawes has been on a shootout roll of late, going 3-3 during his recent opportunities. Ever since his last call-up from Hartford, Dawes has been a different player. Something in his game seemed to have clicked for him; he doesn't play or look like a rookie anymore.

During the game I kept expecting Boston's energy to sag, as they had just come from an emotional win over the Capitals on Saturday afternoon, while the Rangers hadn't played since Thursday. Never happened. NY may have had better opportunities late in the 3rd, but Boston skated with NY all afternoon and made more than a few Rangers defenseman look like cardboard cutouts, the Savard line in particular was swarming the Rangers D most of the game. It seemed as if the Rangers were content to allow Boston to skate in with the puck all game and attempt to force turnovers to feed their transition game. It worked, to an extent. I'd rather see NY's D stop the opposing teams offense at the blue line, rather than depend on the likes of Marek Malik to force a defensive zone turnover. Then again, I was calling for Renney to give Lundquist a rest a few games ago, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Blueshirt blueliners Mark Staal and Dan Girardi played strong all game, with Girardi in particular blocking multiple shots.

Second 1st star of the game in a row for Lundquist. With his 9th shutout of the season, Henrik is now tied with Columbus Blue Jacket's netminder Pascal Leclaire for the league lead in shutouts. Those shutouts are the most since Ranger's HOF goaltender Eddie Giacomin had 9 in '66-'67.

No rest for the weary however, as the Rangers travel up to Buffalo for a game Monday night. NY is now 9-0-3 in their last 12, 14-3-3 in their last 19. NY is looking to sweep the season series from Buffalo, having won the first three games in the series so far. Buffalo is coming off a tough 4-3 OT loss against the Carolina Panthers, after having come back from down 2-0. The Sabres have been in a rough stretch of late, going 1-3-1 over their past 5.

Does Renney go with the hot hand in Lundquist or give Henrik an extra day off and put Valiquette in net? I'm leaning towards Lundquist getting the start against Buffalo tonight as the Rangers don't play again until Friday vs. the Panthers.

Post-game MSG interview.


Stan Fischler's post-game question to Tom Renney: "Tom, do you think the Daylight Saving's Time change had anything to do with today's game (lack of scoring)?"
Tom Renney: (sic)"You nailed it Stan, it was a big psychological drain(?) for us. Best question of the year."

Thanks for that Stan...