MONTREAL — One goes down, and another steps up.
In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, the Rangers saw an important piece of their forward corps, center Derick Brassard, leave the game after his second shift, having taken a hard open-ice hit from Canadiens defenseman Mike Weaver and seemingly aggravating his balky back.
Brassard got some treatment on the bench from trainer Jim Ramsay, but eventually went to the locker room and did not return in what would result in a 7-2 Rangers win at the Bell Centre.
Coach Alain Vigneault called his status “day-to-day,” and Brassard said after the game that he didn’t think the injury was serious, but he didn’t think he could help his team if he returned.
Yet Brassard’s loss was eased by the terrific effort of Dominic Moore, who moved up from his regular role as a fourth-line center and arguably played his best game of the season.
In the first period alone, Moore made an outstanding, no-look, cross-ice backhand pass to set up Martin St. Louis on the opening goal, 4:35 in, then helped to set up Mats Zuccarello for the second goal just less than two minutes later, the Blueshirts taking a decisive 2-0 lead to flip a negative into a positive and start the series off on the right foot.
“He did an unreal job,” coach Alain Vigneault said about Moore, who played a postseason-high 16:36. “To lose Brass right away on his second shift put our rotation and our lines out of whack a little bit.”
Moore was flying around the ice, showing glimpses of speed and vision that have heretofore been rare.
“We all try to play the same way, top to bottom, and we have good depth, that’s been a strength of ours all the way through,” Moore said. “Everyone’s attitude is the same, just to do their job, whatever you’re asked to do. I thought we had a good mentality today from the start of the game.”
Rangers forward Chris Kreider went barreling into Canadiens starting goalie Carey Price early in the second period, dislodging the net and leaving Price on the ice grabbing for his right knee.
Price skated it off and did stay in for the rest of the period, only to get a seat on the bench at the start of the third in favor of backup Peter Budaj, the Rangers already up, 4-1.
“I think it was accidental, honestly,” Montreal coach Michel Therrien said. “The fact that he didn’t play in the third period, that was more to protect him than anything, because we were not sharp in front of him.”
Kreider, who scored on a similar breakaway later in the second period, said he surely didn’t mean to slam into the goalie.
“It wasn’t trying to run into him,” Kreider said. “Somehow I lost my footing.”
Former Ranger Brandon Prust had a moderate mental breakdown early in the third period, drawing two minors and a 10-minute misconduct after slashing Kreider in his surgically repaired left hand, then spearing him in the nether-regions.
The Rangers power play was 3-for-7, scoring twice on Prust’s consecutive minors. They’re 9-for-62 (14.5 percent) in the postseason. They did give up a shorthanded goal to Lars Eller with just under five minutes to go in the game, already up 7-1.
The Canadiens power play went 0-for-3, coming in 10-for-38 (26.3 percent).