By Barry Wilner
By Barry Wilner
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Make the resilient Rangers play a Game 7 and they don’t even flinch.
Dump them into a 3-1 hole in a playoff series and they simply work harder.
And win.
Derek Stepan scored 11:24 in overtime, lifting New York past the Washington Capitals 2-1 and into the Eastern Conference finals Wednesday night.
“We have a good group that keeps their wits about them and keeps calm,” said Stepan, who was mobbed by his teammates along the glass as Madison Square Garden shook from the cheers. “There is no real panic. We just go out and play. We just see what happens and we just play hockey.”
Stepan’s wrist shot from the left wing after he won a faceoff — a rarity for the Rangers — capped the comeback. The Rangers are the only team to win series after trailing 3-1 in successive years, doing the same thing to Pittsburgh in the second round in 2014.
“It’s a very special win,” said Henrik Lundqvist, who made 35 saves and became the third goalie to win six Game 7s, joining Patrick Roy and Martin Brodeur.
New York, which had the NHL’s best record this season, will face Tampa Bay for a spot in the Stanley Cup finals, where the Rangers lost to Los Angeles last spring. The series begins Saturday at the Garden.
Alex Ovechkin scored in the first period for Washington, which has lost five Game 7s in as many tries when leading a series 3-1. Kevin Hayes tied it in the second.
Although the Rangers were badly outplayed early in overtime, Lundqvist stood tall with eight saves as the Capitals couldn’t find that winning touch. That’s something the Rangers seem to own in a seventh game: New York has won six in a row, including the last three series against Washington.
“It’s hard to really explain,” said Dan Girardi, whose shot from the point led to Stepan’s winner. “We were down and it looked like we were down and out, and we found a way to crawl back in this series and win one game at a time. We knew coming into this barn in Game 7 anything could happen and it went down to the wire.”