GREENBURGH, N.Y. -- Henrik Lundqvist told the New York Rangers before Game 4 Thursday that they weren't going to go out in a sweep.

"We worked for too long and too hard to go out in four straight," Lundqvist said.

He was right, but now they'll have to avoid going down in five to the Boston Bruins. The challenge remains just as daunting as it was when they trailed 3-0, except at least the Rangers are entering Game 5 Saturday at TD Garden (5:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, TSN, RDS) with some momentum and confidence after their 4-3, come-from-behind, overtime win in Game 4 Thursday.

GREENBURGH, N.Y. -- New York Rangers coach John Tortorella consistently talks about how he's always evaluating his players as the game is going on. If Tortorella sees that someone has it that night, no matter who it is, he'll use that player for more minutes. If he senses someone doesn't have it -- and it could be a star player -- than that player will find himself on the bench in the third period.

For the better part of this season and certainly in the 2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Chris Kreider has been the player that isn't playing in the third period because he wasn't playing well enough in the eyes of Tortorella to earn that important ice time. Trust is a big thing with the Rangers' coach, and Kreider, despite his remarkable success in the playoffs last year, hadn't earned it.

Until now.

Tortorella saw enough from Kreider in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Boston Bruins to bump him up so he could play on the second line with Rick Nash and Derick Brassard late in the second period. Kreider would have received more than the two shifts he got in the third period had he not gotten struck in the face by Tyler Seguin's stick.

DETROIT -- Members of the Chicago Blackhawks spent the morning before Game 4 of their Western Conference Semifinal series with the Detroit Red Wings at Joe Louis Arena talking about how they knew this never was going to be easy, even if they stormed through the regular season with the best record in the League and won their first-round series in five games.

Coach Joel Quenneville talked of being excited to see how his team would respond to its first test of adversity. After another frustrating performance in Game 4, the Blackhawks now trail the seventh-seeded Red Wings 3-1, and will be playing at United Center to avoid elimination Saturday in Game 5 (8 p.m. ET, NBC, CBC, RDS).

The Blackhawks had not lost three games in a row all season, but they have now. What happened to the juggernaut? Here are five reasons why the Red Wings are in position to topple their rivals in what would have to qualify as a stunning upset.

Kings aren't born, they're made.

And in the case of the Los Angeles Kings, they're made in the Queen City: Manchester, New Hampshire.

No matter that they're 3,000 miles apart, the Kings and their primary affiliate, the American Hockey League's Manchester Monarchs, have discovered a winning formula for player development.

Bolstered by last year's Stanley Cup victory, this year's Kings roster is packed with AHL talent. Nearly every regular on the roster developed in the AHL, more than half coming through the Monarchs.

"We take a lot of pride in the success that our players are having at the NHL level," said Mark Morris, who has been the Monarchs' head coach since 2006. His charges through the years have included 2012 Conn Smythe Trophy winner Jonathan Quick, as well as five current L.A. players who were in Manchester just this season alone: Tyler Toffoli, Slava Voynov, Dwight King, Jordan Nolan, and Jake Muzzin.

PITTSBURGH -- Sidney Crosby isn't ready to get ahead of himself in this Eastern Conference Semifinal.

The Pittsburgh Penguins captain has heard all the chatter about how his team has found its legs in this series after the 7-3 thrashing they delivered to the Ottawa Senators in Game 4 Wednesday.

He's seen the reports of Ottawa captain Daniel Alfredsson delivering what many believed was a concession speech of sorts in the emotional aftermath of that Game 4 in Ottawa.

He senses the subtle shift in the tone of the questions he received Friday as the team prepared for Game 5 at Consol Energy Center (7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, CBC, RDS), as reporters began focusing as much on big-picture, look-ahead stories as much as the here and now.

With a flick of his stick, Chris Kreider ensured the New York Rangers' season would continue beyond Thursday.

Kreider, who burst onto the scene during the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs straight out of Boston College, rediscovered a little of that postseason magic by converting a Rick Nash feed just over seven minutes into overtime to give the Rangers a 4-3 win against the Boston Bruins in Game 4 of their Eastern Conference Semifinal series.

"I was lucky enough to play with Rick," the 22-year-old Kreider said in the New York Times. "I was just trying to go hard to the net. He's such a talented player. He was able to find my tape and I tried to put it on net."

On the goal, Nash came down the right side and found Kreider's stickblade with a hard pass toward the slot. Kreider had position on Bruins rookie defenseman Dougie Hamilton and redirected the puck high to Tuukka Rask's blocker side to give the Rangers their first overtime win of the playoffs and hand Boston its first overtime loss in this postseason.

Calgary Flames coach Bob Hartley has heard a lot in the last few days that former superstar players don't become great NHL coaches and that it's been a long time since a goalie has succeeded as a coach in the League.

Hartley, who coached Patrick Roy when the Colorado Avalanche won the 2001 Stanley Cup, said what he thinks will separate Roy as the new coach and vice president of hockey operations for his old team is his passion.

"He doesn't accept mediocrity," Hartley told NHL.com via phone from Saskatoon, where he is at the 2013 MasterCard Memorial Cup. "He never accepted it from himself. I think that's what he's going to bring to this organization. If you don't work hard, you might be sitting in the stands."

The 2013 NHL Awards winners will be revealed in two live television specials during the Stanley Cup Final.

At 7 p.m. on the day of Game 2 of the Final, the winners of the Hart, Calder, Norris and Vezina trophies, along with the Ted Lindsay Award, will be announced as part of an hour-long show that will be broadcast on NBC Sports Network in the United States and CBC in Canada. The program also will be streamed live online at cbcsports.ca.

The day before Game 2 of the Final, the winners of the Masterton, Selke, King Clancy and Lady Byng trophies, the Jack Adams Award, the Mark Messier NHL Leadership Award, the NHL Foundation Player Award and the NHL General Manager of the Year Award will be revealed at 5 p.m. on NHL Network in the United States and Canada, and streamed live online at NHL.com.

NHL.com will have full coverage of the NHL Awards, including live updates, an interactive chat with fans during both television specials and video features and reaction from each of the award winners.

DETROIT -- Jimmy Howard had just authored one of the best performances of his NHL career -- not just because he stopped all 28 shots against a desperate Chicago Blackhawks club, but because of the magnitude of the situation.

The seventh-seeded Detroit Red Wings now are one win from completing an incredible upset of the Presidents' Trophy winners after Howard's second career shutout in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, a 2-0 win against the Blackhawks in Game 4 of the Western Conference Semifinals.

Despite this, Howard displayed his typical calm, reserved demeanor in front of a large contingent of credentialed media.

Both the Pittsburgh Penguins and Los Angeles Kings are one win away from advancing to the conference finals of this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs. If they wind up meeting in the Final, the Penguins and Kings would present one of the biggest contrasts in style we've seen in years.

The Penguins enter this weekend's action leading all teams in playoff scoring. They piled up 25 goals while beating the New York Islanders in six games to win their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series, and scored 16 more while winning three of the first four against the Ottawa Senators in their second-round series.

Pittsburgh is averaging 4.1 goals per game; only the Boston Bruins (3.22) and Senators (3.18) are above three goals per game.