NHL

Rangers take Game 1 from Capitals with strong third period

Less than 48 hours later, there was little of the drama and desperation in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference seminfinals at Madison Square Garden that had marked Game 7 of the first-round.

Still, the Rangers who had beaten back the Senators’ challenge in a thrilling 2-1 contest Thursday, were able to celebrate after persevering 3-1 against the Capitals off a strong third period to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-7 series that continues Monday night.

Entering the third period with eight shots, the Rangers got the victory when Chris Kreider, The Can’t Miss Kid from Boston College, ripped a 30-foot wrister past Braden Holtby in converting a headman feed from Derek Stepan at 7:00, just 1:30 before Brad Richards scored on a Kreider feed.

The Rangers played without Brian Boyle, who missed the final two games of the Ottawa series after being concussed by Chris Neil’s NHL-sanctioned headshot in the third period of Game 5, and Brandon Dubinsky, who suffered a leg injury that kept him off the ice for the final 11:08 of Thursday’s Game 7 victory over the Senators.

Artem Anisimov skated between Ruslan Fedotenko and Brandon Prust on the third line as he did down the stretch Thursday, and Steve Eminger, a defenseman by trade who’d been sidelined with a sprained ankle since March 15, rejoined the lineup as the fourth-line right wing. Stu Bickel, who played up front a half-dozen games during the season, remained on the blue line.

This is the third playoff meeting in four years between the clubs, with the Capitals knocking out the Rangers in seven games in the 2009 first round before delivering a first-round five game KO last year.

The Rangers were the seventh seed in 2009 and the eighth seed last year.

“It’s the past and you try not to think about it, but it’s hard,” Henrik Lundqvist said. “They knocked us out two years. We really want to beat this team.”

Six Rangers remain from the 2009 club that blew a 3-1 lead in the 2009 Water Bottle first-round series — Lundqvist, Marc Staal, Dan Girardi, Ryan Callahan, Dubinsky and Anisimov, who was recalled from the AHL for Game 7 after Blair Betts was concussed in Game 6 by Donald Brashear.

Seven current Capitals including Alex Ovechkin, Mike Green, Alexander Semin, Nicklas Backstrom, Brooks Laich, John Erskine and Jeff Schultz played in the 2009 series for the club that lost in seven in the following round to the Penguins.

Neither team generated much offense at all through a first period in which the Rangers had four shots on net against the rookie Holtby (one in the final 13:29) and all were recorded by defensemen, with Ryan McDonagh credited with three and Marc Staal with the other.

The Capitals had six shots against Lundqvist, three on a power play midway through the period after Staal was cited for interference. The Rangers could not muster a shot in 2:27 of PP time.

The match remained tight throughout a second period during which the Rangers killed 3:27 of consecutive Washington power play time that included 34 seconds in which the Rangers were down two men when Staal was cited for holding at 6:26 and Prust for boarding at 7:53.

The Rangers, who’d gotten their first shot from a forward when Stepan sent one on Holtby at 200, took a 1-0 lead at 12:38 when Anisimov came out from behind and wrapped one through the goaltender’s five hole.

Anisimov beat Green in a battle to come out to Holtby’s left after Fedotenko gained control in a one-on-one with Roman Hamrlik below the goal line, freeing the puck for No. 42.

Even though the Rangers had just eight shots, it appeared as if they’d bring the lead into the intermission but Jason Chimera got behind Girardi and tapped in a Laich right wing saucer feed at the left post with just 3.5 seconds on the clock.