New York Rangers 5 - Montreal 3

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The Habs opened up this afternoon’s game much like they did against the Islanders yesterday with Christopher Higgins drawing an early penalty; Andrei Markov scored on a wristshot from the point to put the Canadiens up 1-0 with the powerplay goal. The Rangers went on the powerplay a few minutes later only to have the Habs draw another penalty to arrange for another powerplay. Montreal kept the pressure up and Alex Kovalev cashed in on a beautiful pass from Chris Higgins to put the Habs up 2-0 with two powerplay goals. A flawless penalty kill by Montreal highlighted the last few seconds of the period and the Habs went into the first intermission with a 2-0 lead.

The second period opened at the same furious pace, this time from the Rangers, and Huet made several saves against the first couple of shifts to maintain his shutout. Sergei Kostitsyn drew a penalty only a few minutes later and then drew a penalty shot during that powerplay; the Habs went up 3-0 on his wristshot over the glove of Hendrik Lundqvist. A Rangers powerplay did produce a goal from Michael Rozsaval (he redeemed himself for the two early penalties that produced the Habs 2-0 lead) to cut the lead to 3-1 and only 24 seconds later Brandon Dubinsky wired a slapshot over the glove of Huet to quickly make it a one goal game. Alex Kovalev laid a hard elbow on New York’s Hollweg, right into his jaw, and got away with it; this did increase the pace of the already physical game and the entire Bell Centre waited to see if there would be retaliation of some sort. Before that could happen though, the Rangers completed their three goal comeback with a goal during a scramble by Gomez.

Seconds later a brawl broke out in the New York end of the ice as Hollweg decided he would take his aggression out on Sergei Kostitsyn instead of waiting to meet Kovalev. Orr made a run at Francis Boullion who gladly stepped up to meet the challenge from the much larger player and they had a good dance. The whole thing resulted in Hollweg and Orr being ejected from the game and Montreal going on a 3 minute powerplay as Gorges and Boullion took penalties as well. A two minute four-on-four situation started things off with no damage done and the Habs went on the powerplay, hitting the post before ending the period with the 3-3 tie.

A scrum at the end of the second period eliminated the Canadiens powerplay and allowed for some four-on-four time before the Rangers would have a powerplay of their own. Tomas Plekanec had a bit of a breakaway only a few seconds in but Lundqvist made a big save to keep the game tied. The Habs killed the penalty off and play continued to go back and forth at an exciting pace until Chris Drury finally beat Huet to put the Rangers up 4-3 on a nice pass from Nigel Daws. Mara followed that up with another Rangers goal to seal the game at 5-3 with five straight goals from the team from New York.