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New York • With his team trailing after a lackluster effort in the first 20 minutes, Mats Zuccarello came through in the second period to help the New York Rangers get a big series-clinching win.
Zuccarello scored twice and the Rangers beat the Montreal Canadiens 3-1 in Game 6 on Saturday night to advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals.
"He's a competitive little bugger," Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said. "He competes every shift. He's become a real big part of our team, not just what he does on the ice, but he brings the team together. ... He came up huge for us tonight."
Derek Stepan also scored and Henrik Lundqvist stopped 27 shots to help New York get past the first round for the fifth time in six years. The Rangers won three straight after falling behind 2-1 to beat Montreal for the ninth time in 16 postseason series.
"It's going to be nice, a couple days off, but it's only the first round," Zuccarello said after his first career multigoal game in the playoffs. "We've got to regroup right now and rest up and get ready for the next round."
The Rangers will face the winner of the Ottawa-Boston series, which the Senators lead 3-2 with Game 6 on Sunday.
Alexei Emelin scored for Montreal and Carey Price finished with 20 saves. The Canadiens, winners of the Atlantic Division after missing the playoffs last year, were bounced from the postseason by the Rangers for the second time in four years. In 2014, it was in the conference finals.
"We weren't good enough and that's why we lost," Montreal coach Claude Julien said. "But at the same time, I think there are a lot of guys that put in a lot of effort and a lot of energy in the games. At the end of it, it wasn't pretty and we needed more."
After being outplayed for most of the first period, the Rangers came out more aggressive in the second and outshot the Canadiens 12-8.
"We felt like we could do a lot of things better in the second (period) and we did," Lundqvist said. "We had more jump. We were skating more, winning more battles, and made it really tough for them in their own end."
Montreal's Jordie Benn was sent off for holding 1:30 into the second and the Rangers took advantage with their first power-play goal in the series. Zuccarello got a pass from Mika Zibanejad, who had the overtime winner in Game 5 on Thursday night, and sent it past Price from the right circle at 2:26.
"It's lucky," Zuccarello said. "It's not every day you beat Carey Price like that. It's a nice power-play goal. About time. That was big for us."
It fired up the Madison Square Garden crowd that was raucous during the national anthems but had been silenced by the Rangers slow start in the first period.
Zuccarello put the Rangers ahead with his second of the game and third of the postseason with 6:29 left in the middle period. He got a pass from Kevin Hayes in front and, with Benn standing in front of him, beat Price from the right side to send the home crowd into a frenzy.
The Canadiens pressed for the tying goal in the third, pulling Price for an extra skater with about 1 1/2 minutes to go, but Lundqvist stopped all of their eight shots in the period.
Stepan added an empty-netter with 17.8 seconds remaining.
Montreal finished 0 for 3 on the power play, while New York converted its lone chance.
The Canadiens came out aggressive in the first period and had an 11-6 edge on shots, though half of the Rangers' attempts came in the last 1:15 of the period.
Alexander Radulov tussled with Rangers captain Ryan McDonagh in front of the Canadiens goal about 5 minutes in. As that cleared up, Canadiens captain Max Pacioretty and New York rookie Jimmy Vesey dropped gloves and exchanged punches. The latter duo each received seven minutes of penalties.
Emelin, who returned to the lineup in Game 5 after missing the first four games, got the Canadiens on the scoreboard at 6:19 with his first career postseason goal. He beat Lundqvist with a wrist shot from the top of the right circle. Radulov got an assist on the play for his seventh point of the series.
"We didn't like the way we played in the first," Stepan said. "They came out with a big push. I don't think our group thought that we were good enough to match that intensity. I thought we made adjustments. We understood there were still two periods of hockey left to play."
Blues 4, Wild 3, OT • In St. Paul, Minn., Minnesota had the upper hand on St. Louis for most of this series, controlling the play for periods at a time.
With goalie Jake Allen as their guide and coach Mike Yeo on their side, though, the Blues sure had the right formula for beating the Wild in the playoffs.
Magnus Paajarvi scored at the 9:42 mark in overtime, eliminating the Wild in the first round following the best season in franchise history.
"They know us. We know them," said Allen, who stopped 174 of the 182 shots he faced. "They got the best of us two years ago, and we came out on top this year. I'm sure we're going to have many future series."
The Blues advanced to play Nashville in the second round, with Game 1 against the Predators at home in St. Louis.
"I think we should be proud, but not satisfied," Paajarvi said, adding: "We've got to play a better game."
Allen made 34 saves for the Blues, who led 2-0 and 3-1 before a furious rally by the Wild to try to keep their season alive forced the extra frame. Mikko Koivu and Jason Zucker scored to bring the Wild back from their second two-goal hole, a deficit that held past the midpoint of the third period until the two scores 4:21 apart that Allen said the Wild deserved for how hard they came at him.
Vladimir Tarasenko scored for the first time in the series, Alexander Steen followed him 3:15 later for a 2-0 lead midway through the first period and Paul Stastny got a goal in his first appearance of the playoffs, but the Blues were still fortunate to make it to overtime with all the difficult saves Allen had to make.
Despite a clear edge in shots on goal and faceoff draws and a dominant penalty kill unit throughout the series, the Wild were left wondering what more they had to do to get more pucks past Allen.
"They weren't the better team," coach Bruce Boudreau said, "but they won four games."
Paajarvi's first career playoff goal was set up by Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk, who stopped 23 shots. He turned the puck over to Vladimir Sobotka, whose pass found the trailing Paajarvi for the winner.
That gave Yeo the satisfaction of beating the team that fired him a little over a year ago, his insider knowledge of the Wild's preferences and tendencies undoubtedly a strategical benefit for the Blues.
"I don't think that what I'm feeling right now would be any different if it was any other team," said Yeo, who was congratulated in the locker room afterward by Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher.
Ryan Suter scored the first of two power play goals by the Wild, who posted a 26-12 advantage in shots on goal over the second and third periods after weathering an early barrage by the Blues. They lacked that finishing touch to reward their 5-on-5 effort, though, and Dubnyk couldn't quite match Allen's brilliance.
The Wild also lost first line center Eric Staal to a scary injury in the second period when he crashed head first into the boards and, though alert and stable, was sent to a nearby hospital for further observation. Erik Haula filled in admirably, but in defeat.
"What is this, five years in a row? I'm sick of it," Haula said. "We're all sick of it."
The Wild had a goal waved off earlier in the third period for goaltender interference on Nino Niederreiter. Coach Bruce Boudreau challenged, arguing that Jori Lehtera pushed Niederreiter into Allen, but the video review upheld the call to trigger an angry, dismissive wave of the left hand by Boudreau.
Tarasenko, who had six goals in six games against the Wild in the playoffs in 2015, used some fancy footwork to give the Blues the early lead. He charged in from the corner and, after a collision of sticks with Wild defenseman Jonas Brodin, kept the puck alive by pin-balling it off the inside of both skates before going to the opposite side to beat Dubnyk .
"It's impossible to pick one thing," Koivu said, "why we came up short like that."