The NY Rangers and Montreal Canadiens are back on the NHL schedule for the eastern conference finals and New York is up 3-1 in the series with the chance to clinch the Stanley Cup finals at the Bell Centre and the matchup starts at 8 pm ET on the NBC Sports Network and also has a live stream from NBCSN on the Live Extra website.
The Rangers needed to win Game 4 badly after losing game 3 at home and now they have a commanding 3-1 series lead rather than a 2-2 series tie and that would have been very tough after winning the first two games in Montreal. The Rangers won Game 3 in overtime after a goal from Martin St. Louis to the top shelf on Dustin Tokarski and now the team has the chance to lock things up without going back to the Garden and that would mean the next game at MSG would be Game 3 of the finals and the Rangers would love to do that.
The series would have a very different complexion if the Canadiens won that game, as it would sort of take away the entire momentum swing for the Rangers after their wins in Montreal and now all that is out the window. Both teams said after the game that the series still has plenty of hockey to be played and NY made sure to say that they did not think the series was over and that they expect a very tough finish from the Canadiens in Game 5 in Montreal. The 3-1 series deficit is very hard to overcome, but the Rangers will not be surprised, as they just did it against the Pittsburgh Penguins in the previous series.
The Rangers started the playoffs with a seven game series against the Philadelphia Flyers and won that at home in Game 7 and in the second round they matched up with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The team won the first game in overtime and then suffered a power play and offensive outage, allowing the Pens to come back and win the next three and that set up the great rebound for the Rangers, as they ended up winning the series in seven games. Things turned in Game 5 on goal from Chris Kreider, as he snapped the power play streak and sparked the team and now they have only lost one game since and could be on their way to the finals.
The Canadiens started off the series with a tough loss and they have been without starting goalie Carey Price and while that hasn't made as big of an impact as some expected, his loss has been huge for Montreal. Tokarski has been playing very well against Henrik Lundqvist, but the King has been just a little better against the Kid as he has been called and now the Rangers have the chance to get into the finals. The two teams have no love lost between each other and on top of that the story involving Martin St. Louis and his mother has been an emotional charge for the Rangers. St. Louis scored the winning goal in overtime and now he returns to Montreal where he also scored a goal and the team now has the confidence to win a third game north of the border.
Check here for the NY Rangers and Montreal Canadiens live coverage from the NHL playoffs for the eastern conference finals.