NEW YORK – Joel Ward scored with 1.3 seconds left to give the Washington Capitals a 2-1 victory over the New York Rangers on Thursday night in Game 1 of their second-round series.
Ward drove to the net and tapped Alex Ovechkin’s feed past Henrik Lundqvist. After the goal was confirmed by replay, Ovechkin kissed Ward on the cheek.
Following a mostly ceremonial faceoff, the teams skirmished at center ice.
Ovechkin opened the scoring on a power play with 1:47 remaining in the first period. Jesper Fast tied it with 4:39 left in the third, tipping Kevin Hayes’ point shot past goalie Braden Holtby.
Holtby made 31 saves, and Lundqvist stopped 27 shots.
Game 2 is Saturday at Madison Square Garden.
The Capitals ended a two-game losing streak against New York in the playoffs. Washington also lost three of the four regular-season meetings with the Rangers.
In the first period, with New York center Dominic Moore in the penalty box for holding, Ovechkin carried the puck into the offensive zone and whipped a shot past Lundqvist from the top of the left circle for his third goal of the playoffs.
In 27 career playoff games against the Rangers, Ovechkin has 11 goals and 10 assists. He led the NHL during the regular season with 53 goals, 25 power-play goals and 11 game-winning goals.
Ovechkin’s goal was Washington’s first playoff score against Lundqvist in 138:13 dating to Game 6 of the 2013 Eastern Conference quarterfinals.
Holtby was aided by some misfires from New York’s shooters.
In the second, Carl Hagelin pushed Fast’s cross-ice feed wide of the net. Later in the period, Derick Brassard couldn’t jam a loose puck in the crease past Holtby. Martin St. Louis’ slap shot from the slot 3:56 into the third was blocked by Karl Alzner.
Lundqvist was strong, too. He made a glove save on Nicklas Backstrom with 5:28 left in the second. In the third, he stopped Brooks Laich’s wraparound attempt and John Carlson off-wing drive.
Ducks 6, Flames 1
Corey Perry had two goals and two assists and the Anaheim Ducks routed the Calgary Flames 6-1 on Thursday night in Game 1 of their Western Conference semifinal series.
Ryan Getzlaf had a goal and three assists, and Matt Beleskey, Patrick Maroon and Emerson Etem also scored for the top-seeded Ducks, who had a seven-day layoff following their first-round sweep of Winnipeg.
Game 2 is Sunday night back at Honda Center, where the Flames haven’t won since the 2006 playoffs and have lost 20 consecutive regular-season games since January 2004.
The six goals tied a Ducks playoff record. Frederik Andersen made 23 saves, losing his bid for his first NHL playoff shutout when Sam Bennett ended the scoring with 10:44 remaining.
Jonas Hiller, who was pulled by coach Bob Hartley in Games 2 and 6 of the Flames’ first-round series against Vancouver, stopped 11 of 14 shots before he was yanked again with a 3-0 deficit after Perry carried the puck out from behind the net and jammed it past Hiller’s stick at 2:13 of the second period.
The game was still scoreless when the sellout crowd of 17,174 unleashed derisive chants of “Hill-er! Hill-er!”
Hiller spent his first five NHL seasons with Anaheim and became a free agent last summer after the Ducks decided not to re-sign him. The Flames inked him to a two-year, $9 million contract, and he finished the regular season 26-19-4 with a 2.36 goals-against average.
Hiller appeared in 26 postseason games with Anaheim and started 22 of them, going 12-12 with a 2.29 GAA and three shutouts. But he was edged out on the depth chart by Andersen and John Gibson after the Ducks were bounced in the second round last year by eventual champion Los Angeles.
