Lundqvist Gets His 200th Win Over Kings After Shoot Out

Added on Feb 18, 2011 by J Merrill in

NHL

On a historic night for Henrik Lundqvist, 2 gorgeous shootout goals from Erik Christensen and Mats Zuccarello lifted the Rangers to their second win in as many games after a 0-5-1 slide. The goals gave Lundqvist his 200^th win in the National Hockey League, and gave the Los Angeles Kings a lot to think about.

“It was a game of ups and downs,” said Lundqvist, in his sixth NHL season. “The second one hit our guy, and the third one hit me in the head and went in. They never gave up. I’m just happy with the two points. They are very important right now.” He concluded “When we scored the second one we felt like we had it, and when we scored the third one we definitely felt like we had it. They had some luck there I think on the two goals, it bounced on our guy and the third one hit my head and went in. They kept working so we have to give it to them, but we responded in the right way.”

New York Rangers coach John Tortorella was happy Henrik got the win, but he wasn’t all smiles after the game. He likes the fact that his team is finding a way to win games at this point in the season. Tortorella said his team has guts, “We’ve been like that all year long, and I like that about our club. “Are we playing our best hockey now? No. Did we make some mistakes? Yes. But, we do, we’ve got some balls and I hope that keeps transforming and you find ways to win hockey games in the grind that’s going to come up here. We’ve got a tough schedule.” Coach Tortorella knows its crunch time, and he concluded “We’ve just got to try to squeeze everything out of ourselves as we go through this. I’m really happy we found a way to get the two points to start the weekend.”

New York’s Ryan Callahan, who scored a goal and had an assist in the game, was happy to get to the win, and he had a lot of nice things to say about the Los Angeles Kings. He said “You knew they weren’t going to give up or let up. It’s a good team over there. They’ve got a lot of speed, they work hard and it’s really tough to get through the neutral zone on them. But we kept at it, kept with the game plan and it paid off in the end. It’s really big. We showed some character through it.”

The Los Angeles Kings 32-22-4 (68pts) , are 3rd in Pacific Division, and the will play the New York Islanders(21-30-7, 49pts) on Saturday in New York. The Rangers 31-24-4 (66pts), are 3rd in Atlantic Division, and they will square off with the New Jersey Devils (23-30-4, 50pts) tonight at the Prudential Center.