Brassard OT goal gives Rangers Game 1 win over Penguins

PITTSBURGH — The play kept going, but Derick Brassard knew it was over.

“The sound of the back post and the main post [are] different,” he said. “I felt like it hit the inside of the goal. But it really doesn’t matter.”

No, it didn’t matter if it was Brassard or Benoit Pouliot in the aftermath, because the result was the same. The puck got behind Marc-Andre Fleury and into the Penguins’ net, overtime coming to a quick and dramatic finish as the Rangers were able to walk out of CONSOL Energy Center on Friday night with a 3-2 win in Game 1, drawing opening blood against the mighty Pens in this second-round playoff series.

“It’s big for our team to come here and beat them the first game,” said Brassard, whose winner came 3:06 into the extra frame when he slid into the goalmouth, took a pass from Pouliot and fired a wrist shot up and over Fleury, rattling the top-back pipe. “It shows us we can play with those guys.”

After Brassard’s shot went in, it quickly came out of the net and referees Steve Kozari and Brad Watson — who were fumbling throughout the entirety of the contest — let the play continue.

“I kind of stopped playing,” Brassard said, speaking of his frantic waving towards the refs that his shot went in. Either way, the still-live puck eventually came back to him, he fed Pouliot in front, and the puck went in a second time, just for good measure.

Two for one, and they’ll take it.

“There’s nothing quite as euphoric,” Brad Richards said, “as winning in overtime.”

For a long time, it seemed as if the Rangers would have been lucky to even get to overtime. They blew a 2-0 first-period lead by playing arguably their worst period of the postseason in the second, allowing the Penguins to outshoot them 15-4 and tie the game behind goals from Lee Stempniak and James Neal.

“We just stopped skating,” said Richards, whose team has now played three games in four nights en route to what will be five in seven following their first-round Game 7 win over the Flyers on Wednesday at the Garden. “It was probably us settling into a 2-0 lead more than anything else.”

That lead came by way of early tallies from Pouliot and Richards, neither goal exactly a feat of marvel as Fleury continued to show postseason cracks. Pouliot’s goal was a 55-footer that beat Fleury over his shoulder, and even though Richards was left wide open at the far post for his, Fleury was flailing around at the top of his crease, nowhere to be found when Richards calmly went to his forehand and slid it in.

Ryan McDonagh and Dan Girardi battle for the puck against Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh PenguinsGetty

But by the Rangers getting only four shots through in the second, Fleury was able to settle in as his team stormed back. The Rangers showed some character in the scoreless third period, standing up to the Penguins attack, especially the effort Marc Staal and Anton Stralman put forth against Sidney Crosby, the superstar Hart Trophy favorite who went pointless and finished a minus-3.

“We had a good talk, and got back to business,” Pouliot said about the second intermission. “Then in overtime, we did the same thing and got it done right away.”

So the Rangers have now taken away home-ice advantage from the Penguins, that team that finished first in the Metropolitan Division, 13 poitns ahead of the second-place Rangers. With Game 2 set for Sunday night in this rocking black-and-gold building, the opportunity to finally take a stranglehold of a series awaits.

Remember, the Rangers haven’t won a game after taking a series lead in the past 12 tries, a league record.

“It’s obviously huge when you win the first game,” Brassard said. “It puts a lot of pressure on the other team.”