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Jagr leads Rangers' comeback in third period

Nov 15, 2006 - 3:12 AM NEW YORK (Ticker) -- Jaromir Jagr and the New York Rangers came out on a mission in the final period.

The Rangers scored three times in the first 90 seconds of the final session to post a 3-2 come-from-behind victory over the New Jersey Devils.

New York, down by two goals entering the third, got on the board when Jagr redirected a shot past goaltender Martin Brodeur on a give-and-go with Marcel Hossa. Jagr netted his second goal of the contest as he fluttered a shot over Brodeur's head.

"You got to drive to the net," Jagr said. "They have a good system, they have a great goalie. It's not easy to score against them, it's not at all. Trust me, I played against many teams and against great goalies but this is probably the toughest. They have the system plus the goalie. It's not easy to do that. You have to be real lucky or you have to do something special."

Brendan Shanahan completed the flurry with a wrister under the arm of Brodeur on the stick side just 3:35 into the final session.

"They got confused on a line change," Shanahan said. "I think they were putting out their checkers and decided to change it up. I was able to swing deep, gather speed and drove through the middle. Mike (Rozival) made a great pass to me up the middle and just kind of let the puck sit out in front of me a little bit just so that (Brodeur) would leave his feet and hopefully just miss it and he did."

Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist surrendered goals over the first two periods to Jamie Langenbrunner and Brian Gionta, but he was stellar in the third, stopping all 10 shots he faced. He finished with 20 saves.

"The way we played in the third is the way we played on the road," Lundqvist said. "We know we have to play hard. We talked a lot about being patient but at the same time you still have to be physical. In the third we stepped up. (Coach) Tom (Renney) talked to us about giving it our all in front of the home crowd."

Brodeur looked to be headed to his 11th win of the season as he turned away 14 shots over the first two sessions, but the Rangers came out with a purpose in the third. He finished with 21 saves.

"It's not what they did," Brodeur said. "It's what we didn't do. That's the bottom line. We outplayed them for 57 minutes. "It shows that if you don't care of little things, you can get burned. These teams are good. The Rangers have a lot of skill defensively and have a few guys on different lines that could make plays and they beat us today."

Brian Rafalski had two assists for the Devils.

"In a matter of five minutes, we started turning the puck over," Devils coach Claude Julien said. "We lost our composure and there was enough time for them to score three quick goals. We fell apart for about five minutes and there's no doubt that everybody's disappointed at that."

The three goals in 90 seconds were the fastest by the Rangers since November 8, 2001, when they scored three in 65 seconds at the New York Islanders.