OTTAWA -- It took the Ottawa Senators 33 shots to get one goal on Henrik Lundqvist, and then a shot from behind the goal line and off his head to finally beat him.

Erik Karlsson was merely trying to get the puck in the vicinity of the New York Rangers net when he took a shot from the right-wing corner boards that deflected off New York center Derek Stepan and off Lundqvist with 4:11 left in the third period at Canadian Tire Centre on Thursday night.

The goal, Karlsson's first of the playoffs, gave the Senators a 2-1 victory as well as a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference semi-final.

"I don't shoot to score all the time," said Karlsson. "From there, you just try to get the puck in and hope for a good bounce. Luckily it somehow squeezed in."

Karlsson scored an identical goal, from the same spot on the Canadian Tire Centre ice, against Detroit Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard on April 4, the night the Senators clinched a playoff spot.

"He's a special player and I've said this before, he just seems to get those clutch goals," said Senators defenseman Marc Methot, who started the play by winning a battle against Rangers winger Rick Nash. "I don't know how you score from that area and what possessed him to throw it at the net the way he did but that's what separates him from almost every other player in the league and we're glad to have him on our team."

Lundqvist stopped 41 shots on the night, including all 21 he faced in the first period.

"I think there's three guys in line with that puck and I didn't pick it up. It just hit me in the head and it's in," Lundqvist said of the Karlsson goal, before shrugging off his fate after playing so well. "That's the life of a goalie. I made probably a hundred decisions, 150, I don't know a lot of decisions throughout the game, playing my game, did the right thing, and it comes down to a play when you don't see the puck and you just kind of wait for it trying to be a little bit more active. And that's the one play you get questions for. That's just how it goes."

Rangers coach Alain Vigneault thought the play should have whistled dead a few moments earlier.

"When we look at it with the angles we get, we felt it should have been icing," said Vigneault. "But at the end of the day, you've got to play and do more than we did tonight to win."

Craig Anderson made 34 saves in the Senators net, including all 12 shots he faced in the first period and all 12 shots he faced in the third. On this night, he realized early he had to be good to beat Lundqvist.

"Right off the bat, I knew he was on his game," said Anderson. "He's got the reputation of being great on a nightly basis, and he gives his team a chance to win on a nightly basis. So, you know you've got to bring your game and make sure you give your team a chance to win as well."

Karlsson said it was simply another solid night by the Senators goalie.

"I think he made the stops when we needed him to," said Karlsson. "He made unbelievable saves on breakaways and 2-on-1s. He found a way to stay calm in there even thought they had pressure."

Ryan McDonagh gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead in the second period before Ryan Dzingel tied it up for the Senators before the intermission. Both were on the power play.

The Dzingel goal came after Lundqvist had made a big stop off a Kyle Turris slap shot, and with Senators winger Alex Burrows causing havoc in front.

"It was a broken play and I just tried to have some poise and kind of wait him out there," said Dzingel. "It was a good shot by Turrey and Burrows always has good net presence, so just tried to wait him out and get it upstairs."

Heading into the series, Senators coach Guy Boucher grabbed to the underdog role for his team, and he didn't let it go after the victory.

"I think the players didn't want to get swept in four," said Boucher. "We heard from everybody how good they are. It's all we could hear, how much they were going to crush us. It is a scary team. They've got four lines and their goaltender is outstanding. Maybe there was a lot of fear tonight that helped us. The guys were able to do it. We're expecting them to bounce back next game even better."

Lundqvist is expecting his team to come out strong on Saturday afternoon too.

"I thought we played really well 5-on-5, we had some really good looks and we had a chance to make it 2-0 but we didn't and they came back," he said. "We'll bring the good parts here and move on for the next one."

NOTES: Senators LW Tom Pyatt is almost ready to return from an injury he suffered in the Bruins series. Ottawa made a last-minute decision to give him one more game to recover. ... The Senators scratched D Chris Wideman, who played five games against Boston. ... Among the Rangers scratches were LW Tanner Glass and LW Matt Puempel, a former Senator. ... The Rangers also scratched D Kevin Klein and C Brandon Pirri. ... When Senators LW Clarke MacArthur got a shot on goal early in the third, it left rookie D Ben Harpur as the only Ottawa player without a shot on goal in the game.