NEW YORK (Ticker) -- All-Star Henrik Lundqvist helped the New
York Rangers win in regulation for the first time in over three
weeks.
Lundqvist made 25 saves and collected an assist as the Rangers
pulled out a 3-1 victory over the New York Islanders on
Wednesday.
Nigel Dawes, Scott Gomez and Fredrik Sjostrom each scored and
captain Chris Drury had three assists for the Rangers, who won
without the benefit of a shootout for the first time since
January 27.
"I was just putting too much on myself, carrying around the
weight of the team," Drury said. "I'm just going to play and
maybe relax a little bit. I kind of think, less is more."
The Rangers had posted a 1-6-2 record over that stretch.
"It is a good feeling," Lundqvist said. "It has been a while
since I had this feeling. We played pretty much the same way
tonight. We just found a way to score two goals."
Yann Danis turned aside 35 shots and All-Star defenseman Mark
Streit tallied for the Islanders, who are 1-4-0 against the
rival Rangers this season.
After Richard Park was whistled for goaltender interference,
Gomez snapped a 1-1 tie at 7:26 of the second period with his
11th goal of the season.
"I got to do what I got to do," Gomez said. "I got to grab the
puck and go create. I've gone away from that. I've been horse
(expletive), I'll be the first to tell you that."
Gomez skated the puck into the zone and fired a wrist shot from
the slot that surprised Danis and trickled across the goal line.
"I don't know how that went in," Gomez said. "It's just one of
those things where you shoot the puck and things will happen.
We finally got a bounce to go our way and we'll take it."
"Obviously that's probably one Yann would like to have back,"
Islanders coach Scott Gordon said. "But he made some pretty
good saves and we also ran into a pretty hot goaltender
ourselves tonight."
Gomez's goal ended the Rangers' 0-for-23 slump on the power
play. The Rangers did not have man-advantage tally in their
previous five contests and are still just 2-for-38 with the
power play over their last 11 games.
Lundqvist was impenetrable from that point as the Rangers
outshot the Islanders by a 38-26 margin. Lundqvist needed to
make just five stops in the final session.
Sjostrom added an empty-netter with seven seconds to play,
securing the much-needed win for the Rangers.