2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs: Rangers Game 1 hero Brad Richards says the power play 'won us this game'

NEW YORK – As much as the Rangers dominated the Flyers in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series Thursday night, special teams made the difference for both teams.

The Rangers killed off a penalty early in the third period of a tie game, then parlayed a four-minute power play into two goals and ended up 4-1 winners at Madison Square Garden.

“We talked about the power play this time of the year, and it won us this game,” said Rangers center Brad Richards, who was voted the game’s No. 1 star after a one-goal, two-assist night.

The Flyers were dominated for most of the first two periods, but thanks to a lucky opening goal -- defenseman Andrew MacDonald’s shot from the point banged off Rangers winger Martin St. Louis and past goalie Henrik Lundqvist -- the game was knotted, 1-1, heading into the third.

The Flyers were in a position to steal Game 1 with a strong third period, and it was set up for them 46 seconds into the period, when Rangers defenseman Ryan McDonagh was sent to the penalty box for high-sticking Scott Hartnell.

The Flyers had the league’s eighth-best power play in the regular season, but their first and only man advantage in Game 1 was a big flop, thanks to great penalty-killing by the Rangers, whose 85.3 penalty-kill percentage was third-best in the NHL.

The Flyers took four shots in the two minutes, but none of them reached Lundqvist.

“They didn’t produce,” Flyers coach Craig Berube said. “They didn’t shoot pucks. They didn’t get shots on net. They didn’t attack. We had a power play in the third period and we didn’t get a shot on net. We had a couple missed shots, one blocked, but that’s not getting enough.”

Rangers defenseman Marc Staal was a shot-blocking machine on the penalty kill, and he threw his body in the way of shots by Hartnell, Wayne Simmonds and Jakub Voracek.

Later, Flyers center Brayden Schenn missed the net from 18 feet, then from there the Rangers got the puck and played keep away until McDonagh was set free.

“That’s a huge kill, a couple of blocks by (Staal),” McDonagh said. “It really could have been a big momentum shift and a big turning point in the game, and our guys found a way to kill that. It was a great job.”

The kill got Rangers fans rowdy, then not long after the Rangers got their big opportunity to finally make the Flyers pay for being dominated when rookie Jason Akeson drew blood high-sticking Carl Hagelin, drawing a double minor at 7:35.

“You have to make a difference there,” Rangers right wing Martin St. Louis said. “You have to make it count.”

The Rangers sure did.

First, Richards had a rebound of a shot by St. Louis from the slot come to him when he was alone at the right circle, and he fired it past Flyers goalie for a 2-1 lead at 8:22 of the third.

With Akeson still in the box serving his second penalty, the Rangers quickly added another 5-on-4 goal at 9:09. Derek Stepan scored off one-timer from between the bottom of the left circle and end line off a pass-shot from Richards, who was at the top right circle.

“When you can get four minutes in the third period in a 1-1 playoff game, if you don’t score or don’t get momentum there, it can go the other way pretty quickly and they can build off that,” Richards said. “One (goal) was huge, but to be able to go back out there and get the other one, obviously that won us the game.”

Special teams won the game for the Rangers, and it started with their third-period penalty kill.

“I felt like we had some energy from the boys there, the way they blocked some shots and made some big plays,” Lundqvist said. “That’s what you need in a tied game going into the third. It’s huge for us and you could feel the energy coming into the group after that, and then the power play did the rest.”

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