Early goals hold up as Rangers defeat Penguins, 2-1, in Game 1

Derick Brassard and Ryan McDonough scored in the first period and Henrik Lundqvist made the goals stand up as the New York Rangers won the opener of their playoff series with the Pittsburgh Penguins, 2-1, Thursday night in New York.

The Rangers shut down Pittsburgh’s top threats, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, for a fourth straight victory over the Penguins in the postseason. The Rangers won the final three games of a second-round series last year, rallying from a 3-1 deficit.

In compiling the best record in the NHL, the Rangers finished 15 points ahead of Pittsburgh in the Eastern Conference. But after the first period, these were two very even teams, with Lundqvist and Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury particularly outstanding. Lundqvist finished with 24 saves, while Fleury was far busier in making 36.

Blake Comeau scored in the second period for Pittsburgh.

Game 2 is in New York on Saturday night.

Detroit 3, at Tampa Bay 2: Pavel Datsyuk scored twice and Petr Mrazek had 44 saves in his NHL playoff debut to help the Red Wings beat the Lightning in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference series.

Datsyuk scored on two of the first four shots the Red Wings got against Tampa Bay’s Ben Bishop. Luke Glendening’s short-handed goal gave Detroit a 3-1 lead early in the third period.

Mrazek, named Detroit’s starter for Game 1 over veteran Jimmy Howard, gave up a short-handed goal to Brian Boyle in the first period and a late goal to Nikita Nesterov that enabled the Lightning to pull within 3-2.

Tampa Bay outshot the Red Wings 46-14, but went 0 for 7 on the power-play — failing to even get a shot off on the final opportunity in the closing seconds of the game.

Minnesota 4, at St Louis 2: Jason Zucker and Matt Dumba gave the Wild a two-goal lead through two periods and they kept chances to a minimum for Devan Dubnyk, opening the playoffs strong with a victory over the Blues.

Jaden Schwartz and Alexander Steen scored in the third period for the Central Division champion Blues, but too little and too late. Game 2 is on Saturday.

Dubnyk, in his playoff debut, saw only 11 shots in the first two periods, and finished with 19 saves.

There was a flurry of scoring in the final seconds, some of it after a standing-room crowd had headed for the exits. Mikael Granlund’s empty-netter made it a two-goal cushion with 1:13 to go, seven seconds after Jake Allen headed for the bench. Steen scored with 58.7 seconds left for St. Louis, but Jason Pominville scored with 20 seconds left to clinch it.