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Dawes helps Rangers edge Ducks

Dec 17, 2008 - 6:46 AM By Craig Shultz PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

ANAHEIM, California (Ticker) -- Nigel Dawes snapped a tie with 3:16 remaining in the third period as the New York Rangers started a three-game road trip through California with a 3-1 triumph over the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday.

Captain Chris Drury and Nikolai Zherdev also scored and Henrik Lundqvist made 19 saves for the Rangers, who won in regulation for the first time since November 24. New York has gone 6-4-0 over that 10-game stretch.

Chris Kunitz netted a goal and Jonas Hiller turned aside 27 shots for the Ducks, who saw their five-game home winning streak come to an end.

With the score knotted at 1-1, Dawes intercepted an outlet pass by Anaheim defenseman Kent Huskins, skated around blue-liner Chris Pronger in the right circle and fired a quick wrist shot that trickled between Hiller's pads.

It was Dawes' fourth goal of the season and his first game-winner.

"Both goals were pretty similar," Dawes said. "I jumped in front of their guys to pick off those passes."

"It was huge goal for our team to start this road trip off," Drury said. "It was just a pretty goal."

It wasn't so pretty in the other locker room.

"It's not fun being on this end of a play like that, but they played the trap and executed well," Huskins said. "You can't put it into the middle against a trapping team. ... It's just a bad play on my part."

New York was able to shut down an Anaheim team which had scored 18 goals during its home winning streak.

"I think we are all committed to (defense), quite honestly," New York coach Tom Renney said. "It is a good hockey team we played here, and when you give them the opportunity to counter attack and go hard to the net, they do that.

"We were able to withstand that and when we couldn't, Henrik was there as usual. I thought we played 200-by-85 like a real intelligent team, and we had the requisite passion and then managed the game well by managing the puck well."

New York scored its first two goals off Anaheim turnovers and all three goals were unassisted.

"We capitalized on our chances," Drury said. "We had a lot of plays where there were good passes and we could have finished, but just didn't. It was just one of those nights, I guess."

Anaheim coach Randy Carlyle lamented the giveaways.

"We turned the puck over far, far too many times in the middle of the ice," he said. "We played into their hands in too many situations where we turned the puck over.

"The two direct turnovers were the starting point for the goals that we gave up. I understand that turnovers are going to happen - I just think that we seemed to be a little bit off on everything we tried to do as far as execution."

New York's first goal came when Drury intercepted a clearing pass by Ducks defenseman Scott Niedermayer and wristed a shot over Hiller's glove 2:26 into the second period to open the scoring.

"I saw (Niedermayer) peeking a little and I thought I would guess and get to the spot," Drury said. "I just got lucky. I was able to get a little break and get a good shot off."

The Ducks captain, Niedermayer chastised himself for the play.

"The guy was coming at me pretty good and I made a bad decision with the puck," Niedermayer said. "You're not going to be able to make a cross ice pass like that with their guy sitting in position waiting for it. You make the mistake and it's right in your net.

"We just didn't react well to their forecheck. Those are a couple bad decisions with the puck. When a team's trapping like that, the safest play is up the boards and we chose not to it and paid the price."

Lundqvist said it was nice to see the Rangers captain score.

"(Drury's) doing so many other good things out there that you don't really focus on whether he's scoring or not," Lundqvist said. "But for him, it's a good feeling to score once in a while, and it was a nice one, too. This was probably one of our better games this year from start to finish. I'm pretty impressed with the guys."

Zherdev was awarded his 11th goal of the campaign with one second remaining in the contest when he was taken down on a breakaway while facing an empty net.

The Ducks tied the game late in the second period when Lundqvist used his glove to knock away Ryan Carter's shot, causing a scramble in front of the net. Lunqvist batted away the rebound by defenseman Bret Hedican before Kunitz found a loose puck and scored into an empty left side with 90 ticks left in the session.