[Reuters] - The New York Rangers beat the Montreal Canadiens 1-0 in Game 6 at Madison Square Garden on Thursday to seal their first Stanley Cup Finals appearance in two decades.
Dominic Moore scored the game's only goal in the second period as the Rangers wrapped up the Eastern Conference Finals series 4-2. The Rangers will play either the Los Angeles Kings or the Chicago Blackhawks for the Stanley Cup when the National Hockey League's championship series starts June 4.
New York goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who was surprisingly pulled during Tuesday's Game 5 loss in Montreal, made a spectacular return with 18 saves and his first shutout of the playoffs. He pulled off one miraculous save from Thomas Vanek in the second period when he dropped his stick but flipped around just in time to stop the puck going into the net, whipping Rangers fans into a frenzy.
"It feels so unbelievable," Lundqvist said, according to CBSSports.com. "The way we responded here, I think we played one of our best periods of the whole playoffs in the third period, when it mattered the most. You just have to get fired up and go out and play. The guys did such a great job. It was not hard."
With Lundqvist back in goal and the Rangers back on home ice, the Blueshirts came out with all the ferocity of a prizefighter looking for a quick knockout. Montreal's rookie goalie Dustin Tokarski soon found himself under attack, forced to save the first seven shots of the contest, including a vicious snap from Mats Zuccarelolo that rifled into his face mask.
But the Rangers failed to capitalize on their early chances - including a golden opportunity to score off a short-handed wraparound - and the Habs slowly began to grow in confidence in a scoreless opening period.
The Rangers came desperately close to scoring in the second period when Derek Stepan, playing with a broken jaw he suffered in Game 3, hit the post, triggering some anxious groans from the team's long suffering fans.
The Canadiens, who won the last of their 24 Stanley Cup championships a year before the Rangers' last success in 1994, killed off two New York penalties then almost snatched the lead when Lundqvist acrobatically stopped Vanek's backhander.
Moore finally broke the deadlock less than two minutes before the end of the second period when Brian Boyle got in behind the Montreal net and fed the puck to Moore, who slipped it past Tokarski for his third goal of the playoffs.
The last time the Rangers made the Stanley Cup Finals was in 1994 when they beat the Vancouver Canucks in seven games and the odds were stacked against them this season.
They needed seven games to win their first round series against the Philadelphia Flyers, then clawed they way off the canvas from 3-1 down to upset the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round.
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