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.

New York 4 - Montreal 1

Despite paying a hefty fee for the NHL Centre Ice package, Shaw Cable decided to show the game only on their Pay Per View channel today - I was not shelling out an extra $20!

To Shaw’s credit, it seems like they picked a good game to keep from me. The Habs were outshot 41-19 and outscored 4-1 by the New York Rangers, bringing to an end the seven game points streak for Montreal and the five game losing streak for the Rangers. The Canadiens were a lowly 1 for 8 on the powerplay, their only goal coming from Sergei Kostitsyn in the third period. Christobal Huet was pulled after the Rangers went into the second intermission with a 4-0 lead and Halak made 13 saves in the third period to keep New York to only four goals.

All in all not a good showing for the Habs. They’ve been looking great over the past month so I’m not going to worry too much about it - we’ll take avenge crosstown against the Islanders on Tuesday!

January 12 - New York Rangers

The Habs roll into Madison Square Garden in New York City to face the Rangers on the second game of this current four game road trip. The two teams met just before the New Year with the Rangers defeating Montreal in overtime 4-3.

The Rangers are in a hard spot at the moment, sporting a five game losing streak and not showing much improvement. The Canadiens, on the other hand, are flying high; 5-0-2 in their last seven games, on a two game winning streak and very hot on the road.

I’m predicting a 4-1 win for the Habs in this one.

New York 4 - Montreal 3 (OT)

Coming off of two straight big wins isn’t something the Canadiens get to do often and there was much speculation that the Habs would lose their momentum going into New York tonight simply because 3 wins in a row was too much to ask for. Well, while the Canadiens did walk away with a 4-3 loss in overtime, it certainly wasn’t due to lack of effort. After going down 1-0 on a Rangers goal by Daniel Girardi, Andrei Kostitsyn tied things up with a powerplay goal. Jaromir Jagr sent the Rangers up 2-1 before the end of the first.

The second period was all Canadiens with Kostitsyn scoring his second powerplay goal of the game early and Thomas Plekanec firing another in on a delayed Ranger penalty. The Habs proceeded to shut things down, playing a neutral zone trap that kept New York to only one shot in the second.

Things proceeded much the same going into the third with Montreal keeping the Rangers at bay until about 7 minutes left; a bad angle shot that traveled over Huet’s shoulder and hit the crossbar and post was believed to be in only to be called off by the goal judges as the puck never actually went into the net. While the goal didn’t count it did get the Rangers fired up and they scored on a scramble in front of the Montreal net only 2 minutes later to tie things up. The game went to overtime where Brendon Shanahan was able to lift a wrist shot over Huet on a breakaway 66 seconds in.

GAME NOTES: Corey Locke, called up from Hamilton, was caught in traffic and unable to make it to his first career NHL game. Ryder, while not coming up with a point, did look much improved both offensively and defensively. Andrei Kostitsyn scored two goals on the powerplay and added an assist; Thomas Plekanec scored one goal and assisted on two others. Alex Kovalev assisted on both Kostitsyn goals.

Carolina 4 - New York Rangers 0

Cam Ward notched his second shutout of the season as Corey Stillman recorded two goals to help the Carolina Hurricanes defeat the New York Ranger 4-0. This win comes only two days after a brutal 8-1 loss to Buffalo on Saturday night, the beginning of what looked to be a very long 5-game road trip.

The Rangers looked sleepy through this one, nothing at all like the team who beat the Eastern Conference leading Ottawa Senators 5-2 on Saturday. With this loss the Rangers continue to lag 2 points behind the Sens in the standings.