The New Jersey Devils beat the New York Rangers 4-3 on a deflection in overtime to trail two games to one in their National Hockey League playoff series. Boston also won in overtime yesterday, while Calgary upset San Jose.

John Madden was credited with the Devils' winning goal with 6:01 left in overtime at New York's Madison Square Garden. After a faceoff in the Rangers' zone, the Devils' center flipped the puck in front of the net, where it bounced off the skate of New York defenseman Marc Staal and through the legs of goaltender Henrik Lundqvist.

``It was just a lucky goal,'' Lundqvist told reporters afterwards. ``A lot of times those are the kinds of goals you see in overtime, weird ones. I saw it hit Marc's skate, but he was so close it was hard to react to it.''

Boston also avoided going 3-0 down in their first-round series yesterday, beating the Montreal Canadiens 2-1 on an overtime goal by Marc Savard. Calgary defeated San Jose 4-3 to open a 2-1 series lead against a Sharks team that had the second- best record in the NHL during the regular season.

Also yesterday, the Philadelphia Flyers shut out the Washington Capitals 2-0 to tie their series at one game apiece.

In today's games, Pittsburgh visits Ottawa up 2-0, Detroit takes a 2-0 lead to Nashville, and Colorado hosts Minnesota with their series tied 1-1. All NHL series are best-of-seven.

The visiting team in the Rangers-Devils series has now won the first three games. The Rangers, the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference, will host Game 4 on April 16.

`Solid Game'

``We played a real, real solid game,'' Devils coach Brent Sutter said in a televised postgame news conference.

Sergei Brylin, Patrik Elias and Zach Parise scored goals for the fourth-seeded Devils, who had lost nine of the previous 10 games against the Rangers this season.

``We just wanted to go out there and stay positive and throw a lot of pucks on their goalie,'' Elias said after the Devils outshot the Rangers 33-30, including 6-1 in overtime.

Brandon Dubinsky scored twice for the Rangers, Sean Avery added a goal and Jaromir Jagr had three assists.

In Boston, Savard came off the bench on a delayed penalty to score the winning goal midway through overtime. It was Savard's first career playoff goal.

Tim Thomas stopped 27 of 28 shots for the Bruins, who had lost their previous 10 games this season against Montreal, the top seed in the Eastern Conference.

Boston will host Game 4 tomorrow.

Flames Fight Back

At the Saddledome in Calgary, Owen Nolan scored with 3:45 left as the Flames, the seventh seed in the West, overcame a 3-0 first-period deficit against San Jose to grab a 2-1 series lead.

Jarome Iginla, Daymond Langkow and Dion Phaneuf also scored for the Flames, who gave up three goals in the first 3:33.

Curtis Joseph stopped all 20 shots he faced after replacing Miikka Kiprusoff in goal for Calgary, which hosts Game 4 tomorrow.

At the Verizon Center in Washington, Martin Biron kept Alexander Ovechkin and the Capitals off the scoreboard with 24 saves, and R.J. Umberger and Jeff Carter scored first-period goals to help the Flyers even their series.

Braydon Coburn set up the Flyers' first goal with an outlet pass from deep in his own zone that sent Umberger in alone on Cristobal Huet 5:53 into the game. Carter chipped in the rebound from Mike Knuble's shot later in the period to make it 2-0.

Philadelphia's victory ended the Capitals' eight-game winning streak, and a stretch of seven in a row at home. The series shifts to Philadelphia for Game 3 tomorrow.