New York Rangers extend Stanley Cup Finals

When the New York Rangers needed a win to keep their championship aspirations alive, they turned to goalie Henrik Lundqvist. He did not disappoint in game four of the Stanley Cup Final, leading the Blue Shirts to a 2-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings.
Lundqvist saved 40 of the 41 shots fired by the Kings, which yields a .976 save percentage. Fifteen of these saves came in the third period, when the Rangers were nursing a one-goal lead and were trying to prevent the Kings from coming back from a two-score deficit to force overtime for the third time in the series. (New York amassed only one shot on goal in final period.)
This win marks the eighth straight win at home for the Rangers when facing elimination, which is the longest streak in NHL history. In these eight games, which date back to 2008, Lundqvist has allowed only eight goals on 251 shots, reports Jeff Klein of The New York Times.
“Our goalie was our best player,” Rangers’ center Derick Brassard said in his postgame press conference on blueshirtsunited.com . “We finally got some lucky bounces; two pucks basically stand on the red line. There was a lot of frustration with the three games that we played; we felt that we competed really hard, but we didn’t get rewarded. [Game four] was kind of the other way around. We didn’t play our best game, but we found a way to win.”
The Rangers, who recorded only 19 shots on goal all game, got on the scoreboard first with a tip-in by left wing Benoit Pouliot 7:25 into the contest. This goal marked the end of New York’s 123-minute drought – which dates back to the second period of game two.
The Rangers built their lead to 2-0 nearly six and a half minutes into the second when right wing Martin St. Louis scored his eighth goal of the postseason.
A little over two minutes later, Los Angeles right wing Dustin Brown pulled the Kings within one with an unassisted goal, according to ESPN.
On two separate occasions, the Kings had a shot get past Lundqvist in goal but only to stop on the ice right before the goal line. The second time this happened was with 1:11 left in the game.
The Rangers, who improve to 5-0 this postseason, will look to continue inching their way back into the series in game five on Friday. The game will be played in Los Angeles and can be seen on NBC at 8 p.m. ET.