NEW YORK — Derick Brassard and Ryan McDonagh scored in the first period and Henrik Lundqvist made the goals stand up as the New York Rangers won the opener of their playoff series with the Pittsburgh Penguins 2-1 Thursday night.
NEW YORK — Derick Brassard and Ryan McDonagh scored in the first period and Henrik Lundqvist made the goals stand up as the New York Rangers won the opener of their playoff series with the Pittsburgh Penguins 2-1 Thursday night.
New York shut down Pittsburgh’s top threats, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, for a fourth straight victory over the Penguins in the postseason. The Rangers won the final three games of a second-round series last year, rallying from a 3-1 deficit.
Lundqvist finished with 24 saves, while Marc-Andre Fleury was far busier in making 36.
Blake Comeau scored in the second period for Pittsburgh.
Game 2 is in New York on Saturday night.
RED WINGS 3, LIGHTNING 2
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Pavel Datsyuk scored twice and Petr Mrazek had 44 saves in his NHL playoff debut to help Detroit beat Tampa Bay in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference series.
Datsyuk scored on two of the first four shots the Red Wings got against Tampa Bay’s Ben Bishop. Luke Glendening’s short-handed goal gave Detroit a 3-1 lead early in the third period.
Mrazek, named Detroit’s starter for Game 1 over veteran Jimmy Howard, gave up a short-handed goal to Brian Boyle in the first period and a late goal to Nikita Nesterov that enabled the Lightning to pull within 3-2.
Game 2 of this best-of-7 matchup is Saturday in Tampa.
WILD 4, BLUES 2
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Jason Zucker and Matt Dumba gave Minnesota a two-goal lead through two periods and the Wild kept chances to a minimum for Devan Dubnyk, opening the playoffs strong with a victory over St. Louis.
Jaden Schwartz and Alexander Steen scored in the third period for the Central Division champion Blues. Game 2 is on Saturday.
Dubnyk, in his playoff debut, saw only 11 shots in the first two periods, and finished with 19 saves.
Mikael Granlund’s empty-netter made it a two-goal cushion with 1:13 to go, 7 seconds after Allen headed for the bench. Steen scored with 58.7 seconds left for St. Louis, but Jason Pominville scored with 20 seconds left to clinch it.
DUCKS 4, JETS 2
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Corey Perry scored two goals in the third period of a four-point performance, and Anaheim rallied from another late deficit for a victory over Winnipeg in the teams’ first-round series opener.
Perry scored the tiebreaking goal with 6:39 to play, but the officials didn’t immediately see that the puck had crossed the goal line near Ondrej Pavelec’s outstretched pad. The teams played on for 62 seconds until a stoppage allowed video review. The tape confirmed another impressive third-period rally by the Ducks, who had 24 comeback wins in the regular season.
Rookie Adam Lowry and Drew Stafford scored for the Jets in their first postseason game since the Atlanta Thrashers moved to Canada four years ago.
Game 2 is Saturday night at Honda Center.
