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Lundqvist, Rangers hold off lowly Islanders

Feb 19, 2009 - 4:08 AM NEW YORK (Ticker) -- All-Star Henrik Lundqvist helped the New York Rangers win in regulation for the first time in over three weeks.

Lundqvist made 25 saves and collected an assist as the Rangers pulled out a 3-1 victory over the New York Islanders on Wednesday.

Nigel Dawes, Scott Gomez and Fredrik Sjostrom each scored and captain Chris Drury had three assists for the Rangers, who won without the benefit of a shootout for the first time since January 27.

"I was just putting too much on myself, carrying around the weight of the team," Drury said. "I'm just going to play and maybe relax a little bit. I kind of think, less is more."

The Rangers had posted a 1-6-2 record over that stretch.

"It is a good feeling," Lundqvist said. "It has been a while since I had this feeling. We played pretty much the same way tonight. We just found a way to score two goals."

Yann Danis turned aside 35 shots and All-Star defenseman Mark Streit tallied for the Islanders, who are 1-4-0 against the rival Rangers this season.

After Richard Park was whistled for goaltender interference, Gomez snapped a 1-1 tie at 7:26 of the second period with his 11th goal of the season.

"I got to do what I got to do," Gomez said. "I got to grab the puck and go create. I've gone away from that. I've been horse (expletive), I'll be the first to tell you that."

Gomez skated the puck into the zone and fired a wrist shot from the slot that surprised Danis and trickled across the goal line.

"I don't know how that went in," Gomez said. "It's just one of those things where you shoot the puck and things will happen. We finally got a bounce to go our way and we'll take it."

"Obviously that's probably one Yann would like to have back," Islanders coach Scott Gordon said. "But he made some pretty good saves and we also ran into a pretty hot goaltender ourselves tonight."

Gomez's goal ended the Rangers' 0-for-23 slump on the power play. The Rangers did not have man-advantage tally in their previous five contests and are still just 2-for-38 with the power play over their last 11 games.

Lundqvist was impenetrable from that point as the Rangers outshot the Islanders by a 38-26 margin. Lundqvist needed to make just five stops in the final session.

Sjostrom added an empty-netter with seven seconds to play, securing the much-needed win for the Rangers.