The Rangers were playing the last-place Montreal Canadiens, and they are all but certain to finish the regular season with the best record in the Eastern Conference, but they all played with verve, hustling to a 4-1 victory before an appreciative crowd at Madison Square Garden.
"There are a lot of guys who could have won that award this year," Callahan said.
Defenseman Michael Del Zotto scored twice as the Rangers (50-21-7) won their fourth straight game and the sixth game in their last seven. They became the first Rangers team to win 50 games since the 1994 Stanley Cup championship team won 52.
If they win three of their last four games, the Rangers will break the franchise record, set in 1994, of 112 regular-season points, but their first priority is to clinch the best record in the Eastern Conference. They got closer Friday, but they still have some work to do.
"It doesn't mean squat," Coach John Tortorella said of winning 50 games, before adding, "You get measured by the playoffs."
The Pittsburgh Penguins (48-24-6) beat the Buffalo Sabres on Friday, 5-3, to stay within 5 points of the Rangers. If the Rangers win two of their last four games, no matter what Pittsburgh does, they will clinch the best record in the conference.
The Rangers have won five of six games since clinching a playoff spot March 19. Even though they can afford a bad game now, or even a couple, they muffled the punchless Canadiens (29-35-14), who are in last place in the Eastern Conference.
"We understand how we have to play to have success," said Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, who came within 2 minutes 29 seconds of recording his ninth shutout of the season.
Marian Gaborik scored his 39th goal for the Rangers, and Brad Richards and Del Zotto added goals on the power play, which has revived in the last two games. Del Zotto scored again with 3:02 left after taking a pass from Gaborik.
Less than two minutes after the Canadiens failed to score on a first-period power play, Gaborik scored — after a flub — to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead for the 41st time in 78 games. They won 33 of the first 40 games in which they scored first.
The Canadiens received a penalty in the last minute of the first period for having too many men on the ice, and the Rangers did not score before the period ended.
But they did score in the first minute of the second period as a result of crisp passing on the power play.
Derek Stepan, Richards and Del Zotto moved the puck around inside the blue line until Stepan slipped a pass to Richards, who skated toward Price, screened by Callahan, before flipping a shot that skipped over Price's stick at 30 seconds of the second period.
"We're not holding onto the puck for a long time; we move it," Gaborik said.
Del Zotto scored on a slap shot that squirted past Price at 8:17 of the third period.
It was Del Zotto's ninth goal, and the fourth power-play goal for the Rangers in their last two games. In eight games before their 4-2 victory Wednesday over Winnipeg, the Rangers scored only two power-play goals on 23 chances.
"Recently, we're getting some pucks to the net, and we're banging them in," Callahan said.
The playoffs are less than two weeks away, and no one could blame the Rangers for looking forward to them. But no one can say the Rangers are just playing out the string waiting for the postseason.
"We've never been satisfied with how we've done all year," Del Zotto said.
True to form, Tortorella did not sound as if he was exactly satisfied with where the Rangers are now, even after regaining their traction and establishing some momentum. But then he said, "We're taking steps in the right direction."
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