NEW YORK — Brad Richards broke a scoreless deadlock 7:19 into the third period, and the Chicago Blackhawks cooled off goalie Cam Talbot and the surging New York Rangers 1-0 on Wednesday night.
Right after Rangers defenseman Dan Boyle rang a shot off the crossbar behind Blackhawks backup goalie Scott Darling, Richards got the puck in front of the New York net, waited patiently and snapped a shot past Talbot for his 11th goal.
Bruins up next
WHO: Boston Bruins at Ottawa Senators
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Thursday
TELEVISION: NESN
The Blackhawks stretched their winning streak to four and snapped the Eastern Conference-leading Rangers’ winning run at five games.
Richards, a member of the Rangers last season, has five career goals against New York. That was enough to make a winner of Darling, who played for just the third time since Dec. 13. He made 25 saves to improve to 7-3 and earn his first NHL shutout in 10 career games.
New York has scored only 11 goals in its past seven games.
Talbot, who stopped 30 shots, had been 5-0-1 with a 1.00 goals-against average in his previous six games. He hasn’t allowed more than two goals in a game in his last seven appearances. The Rangers fell to 15-4-2 since No. 1 goalie Henrik Lundqvist was forced out of the lineup by a neck injury.
Lundqvist has been cleared to return to practice and is getting closer to rejoining the lineup.
Chicago had scoring chances in the first period, but failed to convert on a pair of power plays.
NOTES
RED WINGS: Detroit assigned defenseman Alexey Marchenko to Grand Rapids of the AHL.
Marchenko, 23, has played 12 games with the Red Wings this season, totaling a goal and an assist. He has also appeared in 41 games for Grand Rapids.
MAPLE LEAFS: The NHL suspended center Nazem Kadri four games for his hit to the head of Edmonton’s Matt Fraser on Monday night.
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