Posted by Pierre LeBrun
NEW YORK -- What an atmosphere here tonight at Madison Square Garden. It's truly an amazing place, and the fans were buzzing all night long.
"Just coming to the Garden on a night like this and being a Ranger and having the fans respond like they have been in the playoffs -- there's no feeling like it," said Rangers captain Chris Drury.
Avery antics
Perhaps lost in the critical Game 4 victory by the Rangers was another undisciplined night for pest Sean Avery. He took two penalties in the third period that could have very much cost them the game. His roughing penalty on Caps blueliner Milan Jurcina at 10:21 of the third period was a head shot, and it'll be interesting to see if the NHL hands him a fine or a suspension.
Comeback Caps?
The mood in the Washington dressing room was decidedly defiant after the game. What are we going to see Friday night at the Verizon Center?
"We're not done," said star center Nicklas Backstrom.
"It's not done," reiterated superstar Alex Ovechkin. "We were in this situation last year."
The Caps were down 3-1 to the Flyers and pushed it to a Game 7 before losing the first-round series.
New lines
Rangers coach John Tortorella juggled his lines for this game, putting Ryan Callahan up on the top line with Scott Gomez and Sean Avery and slotting Brandon Dubinsky between Markus Naslund and Nikolai Zherdev. Chris Drury centered the third line between Nik Antropov and Lauri Korpikoski.
"I felt Dubie's line could create some offense," said Tortorella, who later in the game put Fredrik Sjostrom in Naslund's place on that line.
Caps coach Bruce Boudreau shuffled his lines in the second period, loading up Nicklas Backstrom and Alexander Semin with Alex Ovechkin. They were dangerous the rest of the night, scoring the team's one goal. Sergei Fedorov and Viktor Kozlov ended up with Brooks Laich on the second line.
The captain
Drury played hurt yet again and scored the winner. What else can you say about the guy.
"He is an easy guy to pull for," said Tortorella. "He is an important guy in the locker room. He is much healthier, improving the last couple of days. I think he has things figured out. Is he all there? No. We have to make a decision here: Do we take him out or stick with him and give him ice time in certain situations and see what he can give us versus bringing another player in. That was the call. I felt Chris was healthy enough to add, Chris felt healthy enough to add, not just to put the uniform on. He was honest with me and I thought he did some good things for us. Oddly, he scores the winning goal. That will help him.
"In playoff hockey, the locker room is a very important thing as far as camaraderie. I think that was very important for our team for Chris to maybe do something like that for us to band together with him."
Quick on the draw
The Rangers won 39 of 58 faceoffs for a terrific 67 percent success rate. Brandon Dubinsky was 15-for-17 (88 percent).
ESPN.com Stanley Cup playoffs blog
