The Rangers spent all season showing us who they are by overcoming every obstacle along the way to finish with the best record in the NHL
Now, they are going to have to do that again.
And they are going to have to try, try and try again to clinch this second-round series against the Canes because they showed up as imposters in dropping Monday’s potential Game 5 clincher at the Garden 4-1.
The Rangers lacked snap. They lacked energy. They seemed paralyzed by the opportunity to advance. They were at least a step slower than their opponents. They turned 50-50s into 30-70s the wrong way. They were disconnected and, for the most part, disengaged.
Do you know what it looked like? It looked like Game 7 of the 2015 conference finals in which the Blueshirts could barely muster a whimper before going down to Tampa Bay, 2-0, at the Garden in what was their second straight shutout at home. That night was lousy and so was this one.
Maybe more to the point: Do you know what else it looked like? A typical Rangers game in December or January; that’s almost exactly what it looked like.
And it was stunning.
“This was not a reflection of who we were for the majority of the year,” said rather somber head coach Peter Laviolette. “Tonight was not it for us.”
Laviolette was behind the bench of the 2010 Flyers, who came back from a 3-0 deficit to defeat the Bruins and become one of the five teams in North American pro sports history to pull off the feat, so he knows it can be done. He knows how things can get away quickly and irretrievably. He’s not the only one.
“Any time you don’t play up to your capabilities, you get concerned about that, yeah,” the coach said. “But also, this group had games like this before and responded. There is accountability within themselves and from what the [staff] brings them.”
If it starts at the top, it starts with the top-six that was dominated by their matchups. A year ago — and no one wants a reference to the New Jersey series — the club’s marquee guys were at the root of the problem. Perhaps that does not quite apply to these last two defeats, but the top-six was hardly the solution, either.
Indeed, Mika Zibanejad — who had seemed off since taking an uncalled early second-period spear from Brent Burns — went off on a bad change that opened the lane for Jordan Staal to beat Braden Schneider outside in for the tying goal at 3:33 of the third.
And then just over three minutes later, Artemi Panarin was beaten up the ice in a 150-foot race with Evgeny Kuznetsov, who got position on No. 10 and slammed home a rebound for a 2-1 lead at 6:39. The Rangers had a one-goal deficit that might as well have been a dozen. They barely threatened. They never forced Frederik Andersen to put in hard labor.
Staal was dominant. Alexis Lafreniere, not so much. Vincent Trocheck, not quite. The Rangers were up 1-0 after 40 minutes and really never had much of a chance to close it out.
“I think we sacrificed some of our structure in the D-zone by working hard and not smart, which is something we haven’t done all series,” said Chris Kreider, another of the marquees who had a night to forget. “When we tightened it up, we didn’t exactly [play] detailed hockey.”
Obviously, there was some X’s and O’s stuff both at five-on-five and on the specialty teams. The Blueshirts opened this series by scoring on four of their first six power-play opportunities. They have been blanked 11 straight times since, including an 0-for-3 in this one where the Canes repeatedly beat the Rangers to the puck.
The Rangers weren’t sharp. The Rangers weren’t urgent.
The Rangers did not honor themselves.
They get another opportunity in Game 6 on Thursday in Raleigh, N.C.
They get another opportunity to show us who they are.
They get another opportunity to be the Rangers.
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