The New York Rangers and Los Angeles Kings both won on Thursday night, but they did in different ways, as the Rangers were down 3-0 in the series and needed a win just to stay alive despite not having high priced star Brad Richards on the sidelines and the team came through with a 4-3 win in the extra period.
The team finally got a scoring outburst and rallied to defeat the Bruins, scoring once on a boneheaded mistake by Tuukka Rask, who fell down to allow a goal in to push the game to 2-1. The team got goals from Carl Hagelin, Brian Boyle and Derek Stepan before young star Chris Krieder put a beautiful Rick Nash pass in the goal. The team is now down 3-1 and is still alive despite being outplayed in the first four games and the Bruins got28 saves from Rask, while Henrik Lundqvist was excellent while stopping 37 shots. The Bruins got goals from Torey Krug, Nathan Horton and Tyler Seguin and now must try to close out at home.
The Red Wings blanked the Blackhawks to take a commanding 3-1 lead in the series, while the Sharks fell to the Kings 3-0 and now LA is poised to win by going up 3-2 after 24 saves from Jonathan Quick and goals from Andres Kopitar, Jeff Carter and S. Voynov and now they can try to get to the finals for the second straight year in the west.
After a goalless first period, Anze Kopitar opened the scoring for the Kings in the final few minutes of the second as he pounced on the rebound of a Kyle Clifford long-range shot to notch his second tally of the playoffs, first in this series. Stirred by a fanatical home support, the Kings refused to relinquish the advantage and doubled their lead early in the third when Slava Voynov connected from distance just 53 seconds into the final period.
Jeff Carter capped a comprehensive performance for the hosts when he steered the puck into an empty net to complete the scoring. The Kings took control of their Western Conference semi-final against the San Jose Sharks with a convincing 3-0 Game Five victory on Thursday to move one win away from claiming a series triumph.
think a good start (was the key to the win)," Kopitar told reporters.
"We can all agree that it was probably our best effort in the playoffs so far. We needed it and we came up big in this one."
(Reuters Quotes)