MONTREAL — There was a good reason David Quinn didn’t make a goalie change, and it had less to do about the game and more to do with the environment.
Quinn found his Rangers down to the Canadiens, 4-0, just 22:51 into the game on Saturday night. Goalie Alexandar Georgiev didn’t look great in allowing those four goals on 20 shots.
But Quinn knew the 21,302 at the Bell Center would go berserk if he brought Henrik Lundqvist off the bench, so he didn’t make a move. And it paid off, as his team came back and won, 6-5, completing one of the most dramatic games in recent memory.
“We had Hank warming up,” Quinn said. “I just thought of the crowd. You bring him in, it’s 4-0, the place goes cuckoo. All of a sudden, it ignites everything. I wanted to avoid bringing him in at all costs.”
Quinn also made sure to give credit to Georgiev for keeping his head down after such a tough start, eventually making some big saves late in the second and third period when his team was digging out of the huge hole.
Alexandar Georgiev makes a save on Charles Hudon during the Rangers’ 6-5 comeback win over the Canadiens on Saturday night.AP“It was a grind,” said Georgiev, who made 38 saves. “I try to play in the moment and not linger on those goals. I would like to get a couple back, but you have to forget it and give the [team] the chance to win.”
A small bit of redemption for Pavel Buchnevich, who scored his fourth goal of the season just hours after Quinn called him out for being the culprit in a bad too-many-men penalty during Friday night’s 4-1 loss to the Senators in Ottawa.
“Pavel Buchnevich was apparently not paying attention to what was going on on the ice and jumped on the ice,” Quinn said. “He’s never killed a penalty before in his life, and with 30 seconds to go in a penalty kill, he saw [Jesper] Fast come off the ice — who he replaces 5-on-5 — and he jumped on the ice.
“That was part of our problem [Friday] night. We weren’t focused, we weren’t dialed in. That play symbolizes why we had our asses handed to us.”
Fourth-liner Greg McKegg left the game early in the second period and didn’t return because of a lower-body injury. Quinn didn’t immediately think it was too serious.
Micheal Haley drew into the lineup, playing just 3:58 with one shift apiece in the second and third periods. He replaced Tim Gettinger.
