Callahan nets first goal as Rangers beat Devils

For six games, Ryan Callahan had done everything but score. He was physical along the boards, forechecked, killed penalties, set up teammates for shots and assumed the role of first-line right wing with Marian Gaborik sidelined.

And in the absence of injured Chris Drury, Callahan has been the de facto captain.

Talk about a jack of all trades.

Last night, as the Rangers beat the Devils, 3-1, at Madison Square Garden for their third straight win, Callahan found the net.

With Ilya Kovalchuk in the box in the second period, Callahan drove to the net, got the blade of his stick on Brandon Dubinsky's shot and tipped it past Martin Brodeur at 12:22 for a 2-0 lead.

"I was hoping it was going to come this year," Callahan said. "It wears on you, but you want to do whatever you can to contribute. I had some chances in the last couple games and they weren't going in for me, but hopefully that one will open up the gates a little bit. You just have to keep working and going to the net."

Callahan did just that earlier in the game and found himself all alone with the puck in front of Brodeur with his team shorthanded. He tried to deke Brodeur to his right and the puck hit his pad, rolled across the crease and was cleared.

Heading into the game, the Rochester native led the club in shots and hits and was tied for the lead in assists with four. Against Boston on Saturday, Callahan, who was named an alternate captain last season, spent a team-high 22:45 on ice and scored his 100th point by feeding Marc Staal for a breakaway goal.

"He's been great all over the ice," said Artem Anisimov, who has centered the line with Callahan and Dubinsky since the first game of the season.

The Rangers (4-2-1), who dominated the out-of-sync Devils while skating five-on-five, have reversed a 1-2-1 start and seem to have found an identity based on end-to-end effort, physical play and penalty-killing, which has allowed only seven goals in 33 chances.

Callahan, who says he hasn't done anything different in the room with Drury out with a broken finger, did concede that "we're starting to build an identity with this team."

Michal Rozsival, who assisted on Callahan's goal, scored at 1:26 of the first on a slap shot from the point, but the Rangers needed another quality third period from Henrik Lundqvist (27 saves).

"It seems when we play the Devils, Henrik kicks it up another notch and in the third period," Callahan said. "He's why we won the game."

Kovalchuk, who was a healthy scratch Saturday for some sort of insubordination, cut the lead to 2-1 in the third, converting a blind, between- the-legs pass from Dainius Zubrus at 14:08. Brandon Prust, who had been a questionable starter after a high stick to the right eye in Boston, failed to clear it out of the zone on the play.

But with the Rangers skating on fumes in their third game in four nights, Lundqvist stood tall as the Devils turned up the heat in the last two minutes. He made two stops on Josefson after the power play and nine more in the final period before Dubinsky's empty-netter with one second left.