”The game last night meant nothing if we didn’t follow up with two points again tonight,” Michael Del Zotto said after being selected as the game’s No.1 Star following a shorthanded goal and assist. ”It was huge. A lot of momentum swings, and we have to keep this rolling here.”

 ”You try to play with a short memory, you have to,’‘ Henrik Lundqvist echoed after finishing with 31 saves for his 13th win. ”The games come up so fast. Sometimes you can’t really tell why it turns around for you. You just have to keep working hard and hopefully good things will happen.

”We have to improve and play even better if we’re going to be in the playoffs. These were two good games we can build on.”

”Guys are getting more confidence back,” Rangers captain Ryan Callahan pointed out after tallying an assist. ”We’re getting back to playing the style we want to play. It shows on the ice. It’s two points, and now we have to move on.”

”He [Lundqvist] definitely gave us the momentum, coming off a penalty kill. Del Zotto made a great play up the ice and sent me and Richards on a two-on-one. The D man was kind of cheating the pass so I thought I would shoot.”

On the other hand, it’s back to the drawing board for Devils coach Pete DeBoer. His team dropped its third straight and second consecutive in regulation. After a strong start which had them challenging the Canadiens, Penguins and Bruins for the East’s best record, they’ve struggled offensively. During the 0-2-1 skid, they’ve scored four goals.

”We’ve got enough here to win more games than we have been winning lately,” DeBoer noted after the Devils beat Lundqvist twice but couldn’t find the equalizer. ‘We have to get the job done.”

”We did everything except score when we needed to,” he said after earning the game’s No.3 Star following a power play tally and dominating in the faceoff circle by going 15-and-7. ”It was a pretty good game from our team. You can’t fault our effort today. We didn’t score. We had our chances but didn’t get the bounce.”