New York, meet Marc Staal.

Last Sunday he hurried a shorthanded clearing attempt only to turn the puck over to tie the game in the second. Then the Devils bounced a puck off his skates into the net for the winning goal in overtime.

Wednesday night Staal made up for all of that when he stopped a clearing attempt by the Devils to blast a slapshot from the point to net the game winner.

“I was thinking shoot right away,” Staal said. “I tried to shoot it to the far post and it just went in.”

Staal has played an integral part for the Rangers against the Devils so far. In just his first year in the league he has logged the second most minutes out of any defenseman on the team while playing solid two-way defense the entire time. The goal, his first career playoff goal, put the Rangers up 4-3 before they eventually won the game 5-3.

The Rangers also saw big contributions in this game from their centers Scott Gomez and Chris Drury. Gomez scored two big goals, the first of the game – a powerplay goal in the first period to put the Rangers up 1-0. He also put the Devils on ice when he scored an empty netter off a faceoff with about 15 seconds left. Drury assisted on Gomez’ first goal and put the Rangers up 3-2 in the second on a beautiful deflection on a Fedor Tyutin shot from the blue-line.

The Rangers won another physical game. Afterwards Devil’s coach Brent Sutter complained that they were getting away with too much contact on goalie Martin Brodeur. Sean Avery got away with plowing into him when he was pushed to the ice. Jaromir Jagr also kneed Brodeur in the head on a scoring attempt which left the goalie on the ice in pain.

The Devils tied the game three times, but ultimately came up short against Henrik Lundqvist who stopped 28 shots to beat New Jersey for the tenth time this season.

The Rangers have a 3-1 series lead. The last time a team came back from down 3-1 to win a series it was the Devils in the 2000 Eastern Conference Finals against the Philadelphia Flyers.

Game five could decide it. See you Friday.