Montreal downs Rangers in OT

NEW YORK — Michael Ryder struck for the second straight night, wristing a shot off goaltender Kevin Weekes 2:10 into overtime that gave the Montreal Canadiens a 4-3 victory over the New York Rangers on Thursday.

Ryder, who had Montreal's first goal of the game, scored the game-winner Wednesday with 11 seconds remaining in the Canadiens' season-opening 2-1 victory at Boston.

Alexander Perezhogin had given the Canadiens a 3-2 lead in the second period before Dominic Moore tied it with 2:36 left in regulation. Chris Higgins also scored for Montreal.

Marcel Hossa, acquired last Friday from the Canadiens, scored his second goal of the season and Martin Rucinsky also added one for the Rangers.

RED WINGS 4, BLUES 3: At St. Louis, Robert Lang had a goal and an assist, and Jason Williams had three assists to lead Detroit to a season-opening home-and-home sweep of the Blues.

Detroit, which beat the Blues 5-1 at home Wednesday night, could not have asked for a better opponent to open the season. Since 2002-03, Detroit is 11-1-1 against St. Louis.

Mikael Samuelsson, Jiri Fischer and Brendan Shanahan also scored for Detroit, while Manny Legace made 23 saves for his second win in as many nights. The victory wasn't assured until the final seconds as the Blues, with the goalie pulled for an extra attacker, got off several shots in a goal-mouth scramble.