The New York Rangers have defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins by a score of 2-1 at Madison Square Garden in Game 5. With the win the Rangers have won the series 4-1. The Rangers won by a score of 2-1 in every one of their wins in this series.
In the first period, the Rangers got on the board first when Derek Stepan scored a power play goal, assisted by Dan Boyle and Derrick Brassard. The rest of the first period would remain scoreless. The game-tying goal came in the 2nd period when Nick Spalling deflected a puck off of his shoulder and into the net, assisted by Steve Downie and Sidney Crosby. The third period, was very back and forth, hard hitting even though it was scoreless, Sidney Crosby fired one past Henrik Lundqvist that hit the crossbar and then J.T. Miller fired a puck past Marc-Andre Fleury that hit the same spot on the crossbar. A scary moment happened for the Rangers in the third period when Mats Zuccarello was hit in the side of the head by a Ryan McDonagh shot, he was in pain, skated to the bench and then with head trainer Jim Ramsey went to the locker room. Dan Boyle was very annoyed at himself in the third period when he missed a wide open net that would’ve put the Rangers in front, probably for good.
The overtime session was a hard hitting one with both teams having great changes to win it before Carl Hagelin sent the Rangers into the 2nd round assists by Dominic Moore and Ryan McDonagh. On the play Carl Hagelin got the puck in the corner, skated to the faceoff dot and fired a bullet past Marc Andre Fleury. In the postgame, Carl Hagelin said about the crowd erupting after his OT winner, “When I heard the crowd…..it gave me shivers.” The Rangers won back to back games in OT, with Kevin Hayes getting the winner in Game 4.
The Three Stars of the game were Marc-Andre Fleury, Henrik Lundqvist and Carl Hagelin in that order, descending. The Rangers now play the winner of the Washington Capitals-New York Islanders series in which the Capitals are leading 3-2. The long break will be very helpful for the Rangers, who will hopefully welcome Kevin Klein back for round 2 and depending on the Mats Zuccarello injury, him as well. The New York Rangers tweeted a picture of Carl Hagelin standing next to the Stanley Cup Puzzle with the fourth piece in, with the caption, “ #NYR Carl Hagelin with the Broadway Hat after adding the 4th piece to the puzzle!!! #ChangeTheEnding”