The New York Rangers beat the Montreal Canadiens 1-0 at Madison Square Garden on Thursday to seal their first Stanley Cup appearance in two decades.
Dominic Moore scored the game’s only goal in the second period as the Rangers wrapped up the Eastern Conference Finals series 4-2.
The Rangers will play either the Los Angeles Kings or the Chicago Blackhawks for the National Hockey League’s championship when the Stanley Cup finals start on Wednesday.
Photo: AFP
“We’ve given ourselves the opportunity to compete for the Cup,” Rangers’ coach Alain Vigneault said. “It was a great feeling tonight. We played, in my book, probably our best game of the playoffs.”
New York goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who was surprisingly pulled during Tuesday’s Game 5 loss in Montreal, made a spectacular return with 18 saves and his first shutout of the playoffs.
He pulled off one fantastic save from Thomas Vanek in the second period when he dropped his stick, but flipped around just in time to stop the puck going into the net, whipping the Big Apple’s hockey fans into a frenzy.
“It was a roller-coaster mentally,” said Lundqvist, who gave up four early goals before he was taken off in the previous game. “But then you just have to make up your mind. I kept telling myself all day: ‘Believe in what you’re doing’ ... you have a tough game, but you just have to stay confident.”
With Lundqvist back to his impenetrable best and the Rangers offense fuelled by a rowdy crowd at Manhattan’s most famous old arena, the Blue Shirts came out with all the ferocity of a prize fighter looking for a quick knockout.
Montreal’s rookie goalie Dustin Tokarski soon found himself under fire, forced to save the first seven shots of the contest, including a vicious snap from Mats Zuccarelolo that rifled into his face mask.
However, the Rangers failed to capitalize on their early chances — including a golden opportunity to score off a short-handed wraparound — and the Habs slowly began to grow in confidence in a scoreless opening period.
The Rangers came desperately close to scoring in the second period when a shot from Derek Stepan, playing with a broken jaw he suffered in Game 3, hit the post, triggering some anxious groans from the team’s long-suffering fans.
The Canadiens, who won the last of their 24 Stanley Cup championships a year before the Rangers’ previous success in 1994, killed off two New York penalties, then almost snatched the lead when Lundqvist acrobatically stopped Vanek’s backhander.
“When you get close to achieving a goal it hurts,” Montreal coach Michel Therrien said. “It hurts more when you’re close, but we made some good progress this year. I’m proud of this hockey team.”
Moore finally broke the deadlock less than two minutes before the end of the middle period when Brian Boyle got in behind the Montreal net and fed the puck to Moore, who slipped it past Tokarski for his third goal of the playoffs.
The last time the Rangers made the Stanley Cup finals was in 1994, when they beat the Vancouver Canucks in seven games to end a 54-year title drought.
The odds seemed stacked against them this season when they needed seven games to win their first-round playoff against the Philadelphia Flyers, then clawed their way off the canvas from 3-1 down to upset the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round.
Within minutes of clinching the Eastern Conference, the Rangers’ three co-captains, Brad Richards, Dan Girardi and Marc Staal, were presented with the Prince of Wales Trophy.
However, in keeping with one of the sport’s superstitions, none of the Rangers players dared touch the gleaming silver trophy, posing only for a team photograph before skating away empty-handed, with their eyes on an even bigger prize.
“If you had told me in October that we were going the Stanley Cup finals, I would’ve said: ‘What are you smoking?’” Vigneault said.
Hong Kong-based cricket team Hung See this weekend found success in their matches in Taiwan, even if none of the results went their way. Hung See played the Chairman’s XI on Saturday morning, the Daredevils that afternoon and PCCT yesterday, with all three home teams winning. The team for Chinese players at the Happy Valley-based Craigengower Cricket Club sends teams on tour to “spread the game of cricket.” This weekend was Hung See’s second trip to Taiwan after visiting Tainan in 2016. “The club has been traveling to all parts of the world since 1982 and the annual tradition continues [with the Taiwan
‘TOUGH TO BREATHE’: Tunisian three-time Grand Slam finalist Ons Jabeur suffered an asthma attack in her 7-5, 6-3 victory over Colombia’s Camila Osorio Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei yesterday cruised into the second round of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while Iga Swiatek romped into a third-round women’s singles showdown with Emma Raducanu and Taylor Fritz was just as emphatic in his pursuit of a maiden Grand Slam title. Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, the third seeds, defeated Slovakia’s Tereza Mihalikova and Olivia Nicholls of Britain 7-5, 6-2 in 90 minutes in Melbourne. Ostapenko and Hsieh — who won the women’s doubles and mixed doubles at the Australian Open last year — hit 25 winners and converted five of nine break points to set
HARD TO SAY GOODBYE: After Coco Gauff dispatched Belinda Bencic in the fourth round, she wrote ‘RIP TikTok USA’ and drew a broken heart on a television camera lens Defending champion Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan yesterday advanced to the quarter-finals of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while compatriot Chan Hao-ching on Saturday dominated her opponents in the second round, as world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka swept into the quarter-finals. Third seeds Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia toppled Hungary’s Timea Babos and Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US 6-4, 6-3, hitting 24 winners and converting three of seven break points in 1 hour, 18 minutes at 1573 Arena. Although rivals at last year’s Australian Open — where Hsieh and Belgium’s Elise Mertens beat Ostapenko and Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Kichenok 6-1, 7-5
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei yesterday advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while Coco Gauff’s dreams of a first women’s singles title in Melbourne were crushed in the quarter-finals by Paula Badosa. World No. 2 Alexander Zverev was ruffled by a stray feather in his men’s singles quarter-final, but he refocused to beat 12th seed Tommy Paul and reach the semi-finals. Third seeds Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia defeated Elena-Gabriela Ruse of Romania and Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine 6-2, 5-7, 7-5 in 2 hours, 20 minutes to advance the semi-finals. Hsieh and Ostapenko converted eight of 14 break
RSS