In the Habs' Room: Pacioretty finds chink in Lundqvist's armour

NEW YORK

Carey Price said he wasn’t surprised that a single goal decided Thursday night’s game between the Canadiens and the New York Rangers.

“I thought about that in the first intermission,” Price said after he made 24 saves to give the Canadiens a 1-0 victory. “Hank (Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist) was playing pretty well and both teams were playing strong defensive hockey.

“The guys played pretty well in front of me,” Price added. “We got lucky at times, but that’s part of the game.”

Max Pacioretty scored his 22nd goal of the season with 4:17 remaining in the game for the lone goal, but Price made a big save on Martin St. Louis earlier in the period to preserve his third shutout.

“I just kind of reacted,” Price said when asked about his acrobatic save. “He batted it out of the air and I got a shoulder and an ear on it. I thought it went behind me and I spun around and it wound up underneath me.”

Pacioretty said he and Lundqvist played a cat-and-mouse game late in the first period and the goaltender won with a glove save.

“He baited me with the glove and I took the bait,” said Pacioretty. “I could have shot anywhere else on the net and scored.”

On the winning goal, Pacioretty connected on a low shot.

“I was shooting from far out and I was using the defenceman (Ryan McDonagh) as a screen,” said Pacioretty. “We had (Tomas Plekanec and Dale Weise) going to the net and I shot it through McDonagh’s legs and I might have caught (Lundqvist) off-guard. But you have to put pucks on net and get lucky to score goals, so I’ll take it.”

Lundqvist said he didn’t expect Pacioretty to shoot.

“I got caught too deep and when I was about to push to my left, I got stuck on the post,” said Lundqvist. “I mean there’s no excuse. I have to expect him to shoot even though it’s a weird angle or whatever. I have to stop it. This is on me and it’s a tough feeling.”

Pacioretty had a shot on an empty net late in the game, but hit a post.

“The puck was rolling, I got nervous and I hit the outside of the post instead of the inside of the post,” said Pacioretty. “But empty-net goals aren’t as cool as regular goal, so I’m not too mad.”

Pacioretty said it was good to win here after losing 5-0 earlier this season.

“When you play a road game, you have to grind it out. You have to be prepared to play 60 minutes and we were able to do that,” said Pacioretty. “We haven’t had a lot of success in this building.”

There was some extracurricular activity in the first period and Price said the hard feelings were to be expected.

“It could be a little runoff from the playoffs, but it was two teams that really need the points now,” said Price. “It was a close score, which is what we expected. It’s fun to win 6-5, but if we want to be successful we have to bear down in these games.”

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Weise was sure that he had scored a goal in the first period, but a replay failed to show the puck crossing the goal line before Lundqvist kicked it out.

“It was a bang-bang play and in my books it was in,” said Weise, who shot a one-timer off a feed from Pacioretty. “It was a playoff feeling right from the start. These are two teams that are starting to dislike each other. Those are the games we like to play. I think the goal that was taken back, some of the physical stuff, a couple of cheap shots after the whistle, they gave us motivation.”