Kings hold up their end of bargain. So far

I wasn't able to watch the first period of tonight's Kings/Rangers battle.  So when I turned it on, it was 2-1 Rangers.  That was certainly a surprise, and watching the rest of the game, it was hard to see why.

In the two+ periods that I watched, the Kings hugely outplayed the Rangers; in one stretch, they held New York without a shot on goal for over twelve minutes.

LA did tie the game up in the second on a gorgeous individual effort from Doughty (well, not counting the two guys tieing up the defense and providing four or five bodies as a screen).

The irony of the game was that the Rangers did better on the PK than at even strength.  They held LA without a shot on goal, and scored a shortie (with a couple other chances).

Of course, as with any game this close, there were a couple of good chances for New York.  In particular, St Louis had two beautiful chances where he wasn't able to put the puck on-net.

So despite being outplayed, the Rangers could have won it in regulation.

But nobody scored in the third, forcing the teams into overtime.  Appropriate, I guess, for two teams that played, between them, 41 of a possible 42 games in the first two rounds.

The overtime lasted less than five minutes.  The Rangers had one guy with the puck, near Lundqvist, and three (or all four; I couldn't tell from the camera angle) of the others went for a change.  He fell to his knees with a King bearing down on him, tried to throw it out.  It went right to Richards, who passed to Williams who was open in the slot.  And JW put it past Hank for the win.

Bet Williams is wishing he was going to be UFA this offseason instead of next; he'd definitely be getting quite the payday.

Anyway, it looks (and this isn't a big surprise) like the Rangers are going to get smoked if Lundy isn't on top of his game; the difference in the skaters is pretty significant.  But we'll see.  We might have six games left.