Surging Rangers beat struggling Canadiens for third straight win
Rangers goaltender Jaroslav Halak is congratulated by teammates after defeating the Canadiens in an NHL game in Montreal on Thursday. Credit: AP/Graham Hughes
MONTREAL — Tuesday’s victory over the red-hot Carolina Hurricanes, one of the elite teams in the Eastern Conference, said a lot about the Rangers.
Thursday’s victory over the lowly Montreal Canadiens at noisy Bell Centre may have said even more.
Chris Kreider opened the scoring with a shorthanded breakaway goal as the Rangers scored three times in the second period to beat the basement-dwelling Canadiens, 4-1.
The win was the Rangers’ third straight. Montreal lost its sixth straight and is 1-9-1 in its last 11 games.
Jaroslav Halak made 17 saves for his third straight win.
“It’s easy to get up for Carolina and sometimes harder to get up for guys like these,’’ said defenseman Braden Schneider, who scored his fifth goal of the season. “But you can’t take them lightly. They’ve got a lot of skill and they’ve got a lot of talent. And if they can play the right way and get some bounces, it’s a different game.
“Jaro played great for us and I thought we played a solid game. I thought our third period was a little shaky at times, but overall, it’s a good two points in a hard building to play in.’’
After an 0-5-1 start to the season, Halak has won four times in his last five starts to improve to 4-6-1.
“You’ve got to stick to the process sometimes,’’ he said. “It’s not always pretty. You’re not going to win every night. But you just have to try and give your teammates the best chance to win and get the points.’’
The win was the Rangers’ 11th in their last 14 games (11-2-1) and lifted them to 22-12-6 (50 points). They are one point behind the Devils for second place in the Metropolitan Division and will play New Jersey on Saturday afternoon in Newark.
Montreal was playing its first home game in nearly three weeks after a seven-game road trip, and early in the first period, the Rangers seemed to have the jump on the Canadiens.
The Rangers had the first five shots on goal, but the Canadiens — whose first shot on goal came with 3:07 remaining in the period — got four shots on Halak in the final 3:07, with some of them from close range. But Halak stood strong, and the period ended 0-0.
The Rangers took control in the second period and oddly, it started when they took the first penalty of the game at 5:52 for having too many men on the ice. Kreider scored his 18th goal of the season — and his second shorthanded — at 7:43 to give the Blueshirts the lead.
Kreider’s tally was his 247th career goal and moved him past Steve Vickers for eighth most in franchise history. Mark Messier is seventh with 250.
The Rangers added two goals before the period was over on a couple of long shots by Schneider and center Filip Chytil, who scored the first of his two goals.
Schneider scored at 12:28 and Chytil, who had been dropped to the fourth line in the third period of Tuesday’s game, scored 59 seconds later to make it 3-0.
“[Montreal] came out and really clogged up the middle of the neutral zone,’’ coach Gerard Gallant said. “They did a good job in that first period. And fortunately for us, we got that first goal and that was big for us.’’
Joel Armia scored his first goal of the season with 5:14 remaining to ruin Halak’s shutout bid. Armia rang a shot off the post after that, but Chytil’s second goal,
an empty-netter on the power play with 1:10 left, sealed it.
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
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