Rangers 5, Hurricanes 1

The Carolina Hurricanes had a better start to this game, but Henrik Lundqvist proved to be better than Justin Peters and after the fast start, the New York Rangers dominated the visitors while earning their third straight win, 5-1 on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden.

Derek Stepan had a hat trick for the home team, his first goals of the season.

The Canes had a lot of jump to start things off and outshot the home team while generating several chances before the Rangers caught their breath, but Lundqvist shut the door.  Then at 8:26, Carl Hagelin cut across the middle from the slot area and backhanded  a shot past Peters which seemed to deflate the goalie's team.

It was Hagelin's first goal of the season.

From that point on in the period, the Rangers pretty much controlled play and also outshot the Canes 15-5 in the second period as they scored two more goals and took over the game.

The Hurricanes fell behind 3-0 before getting on the scoreboard when Andrej Sekera sent a puck past "The King" from the point during a powerplay with just 37 seconds left in the second.

That would be it for Carolina though and the Rangers added two more in the third to skate away with an easy win.

The Canes will return home for a match against the Flyers on Tuesday night.

• Manny Malhotra won 71% of his facoffs again to lead the team.
• The Canes were outshot 38-28 for the game.  Eric Staal had a team high six while Sekera was next with five.
• Brett Bellemore had a team high five hits.  The smallest guy in the NHL, Nathan Gerbe, was next highest on the team with three.  The team had a total of 17.
• The team had 15 blocked shots led by Sekera with four and Justin Faulk with three.
• Canes PR has the post game audio: Canes PR