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Jagr, Lundqvist help Rangers clinch playoff berth

Apr 6, 2007 - 6:32 AM NEW YORK (Ticker) -- Jaromir Jagr and the New York Rangers are back in the postseason once again.

Jagr had a goal and assist and Henrik Lundqvist recorded 25 saves as the Rangers clinched a playoff berth for the second straight season with a 3-1 victory over the Montreal Canadiens.

With his tally that supplied New York with a 2-0 lead midway through the second period, Jagr registered his 15th straight season with at least 30 goals.

"That's what he does," New York coach Blair Betts said. "Our top players have been huge, a reason why we've been so successful the last couple of months. We've been playing great defensively and they've been playing great defensively. But they're still going out there and scoring goals for us. Over the last week, we've seen Jags (Jagr) make a few unbelievable plays and we needed to do that."

Despite the loss, Montreal (42-33-6) still holds a one-point lead over Toronto (39-31-11) and two-point edge against the New York Islanders (38-30-12) for the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference. The Canadiens are in with a win at Toronto on Saturday.

"You are going to have two teams playing for their season," Montreal coach Guy Carbonneau said. Obviously it's going to be a great game. We just have to concentrate, refocus, see what went wrong and get ready for Saturday." Later in the middle period, Jagr recorded his 96-point when he helped set up Marek Malik's slap shot as the Rangers pushed their lead to 3-0 with 1:34 remaining.

With the help from Jagr, Lundqvist captured his fifth straight win at Madison Square Garden. Due to the play of the Swede, the Rangers are an impressive 8-1-1 over their last 10 games.

"(Lundqvist's) just been great," Betts said. "I don't know what our level is, he's just been terrific for us. He's been very consistent for us. He's been very calm and poised and gives confidence to his teammates and he's been doing that for a while."

Petr Prucha's 21st goal of the season past Canadiens rookie goaltender Jaroslav Halak opened the scoring at the 2:53 mark in the first period.

Halak, who was coming off his second shutout in 15 starts against Boston on Tuesday, finished with 22 saves.

Montreal's Sheldon Souray tallied an unassisted power-play goal in the third period, establishing an NHL record for a defenseman with 19. Overall, Souray has 26 goals on the season.

"It's pretty secondary right now," Souray said of the record. "Anything that's individual, we'll worry about at the end of the season. We have a common goal as a team that we're trying to accomplish. So anything individual is not important."