Game 3: Penguins 3, Rangers 1.
Click here to read my game story from lohud.com.
Click here for the boxscore with links to the official game summary, etc.
Click here for Alain Vigneault’s post-game press conference video.
Thoughts:
1) After so many games this season, in which I didn’t think the Rangers were very good, I was surprised how they only wanted to talk about “we did a lot of good things.”
2) I was surprised, therefore, when I walked into their lockerroom after last night’s 3-1 loss to hear them talking about how they weren’t good enough. Maybe it’s because the stakes are so much higher right now. And they’re going to be much higher in the next game. And the next.
3) Even though my astute prediction of Penguins in 5 is still very much on the table, I am now more convinced than I was coming into the series, than I was after Game 1, that the Rangers can make this a long series, maybe even win it. If they want to.
4) Because, for most of this game, I thought the Rangers clicked almost all the boxes on their checklist, sustaining the urgency level with which they played in Game 2, continuing the physical assault, and playing with a determined backcheck that was missing so often during the regular season, making it difficult for the gifted Penguins team to generate much. They most certainly did all of those things, especially at the start.
5) And even, I thought, through the second period, when the game changed on the Marc Staal, ahem, penalty and the good fortune power-play goal off Sidney Crosby’s boot.
6) But. There’s always a but. The Rangers have had fits with teams that effectively trap, or whatever you call it that Smilin’ Mike Sullivan has his Penguins doing between the blue lines, where the game was lost, and where Pittsburgh just threw a net over the Rangers’ offense once it had the lead.
7) Part of it, I have thought, is that this Rangers team loves the style of play it is allowed to employ, the counter-attacking, speed through the neutral zone style. The latitude to be creative and make plays. And because it has creative players, who actually sometimes think they’re more creative than they actually are, they often get rush-happy. And therefore unwilling to be the lunch-pail, get it in and go get it team they have been at other times these last four years.
8) If you want to be a fancy boy against the trap, you’re going to look foolish, and spend a lot of time skating back to the bench shaking your head. Which is what the Rangers spent a lot of time doing in the third period in which they came up with a whopping four shots on rookie goalie Matt Murray. That’s after a whopping seven in the second period. They have had fits with the trap all season long. Why?
9) “That’s the biggest thing we have to learn from tonight, more so than anything,” Derek Stepan said, “is we did a terrible job of getting through the neutral zone and that is exactly the reason why we didn’t get a single look the whole third period, because we did such a poor job of coming through the neutral zone. They just have four guys between the blue and the red line. It’s got to be a real simple play. It’s got to be the red line, chip it in, and go get it, because what we did, we just kept on trying to get through it, and this is not going to work. We were stubborn…. Playoff hockey, it’s a real simple game. It’s get it to the red line and get it deep. That’s how you’re going to get it in their zone. They have four guys in the neutral zone. You’re not going to get it through pretty. You have to get it in deep and work as a five-man unit to get it back.”
10) If only they could have done those little things, maybe they win Game 3, because, I thought, the other things they needed to do, they did. They let this opportunity go.
11) Fittingly, the game-winning goal – by Ranger Killer Matt Cullen – was another example of the game they call “blue lines.” That is, get it out at your blue line, get it in at theirs. Dan Boyle lost a puck inside the Rangers blue line, then collided with Keith Yandle, and Tom Kuhnhackl sent Cullen in on a breakaway for a shot through Henrik Lundqvist’s pads. There were still almost 16 minutes left. That shouldn’t have been the game-winner as easily as it was.
12) So the Rangers, during this exemplary five-season run are now a disturbing 10-22 in games after wins within a series. With all the great things you can say about this team’s pedigree, it’s will, its onions, whatever, that tells you something about how they respond to games they don’t absolutely have to have.
13) Again, I’m not undressing them on this point in this game. Because I didn’t think they were bad at all. I didn’t think they lacked compete or will or any of the things that you could question the first 82 games. Just a stubbornness, as Stepan said, that cost them a chance to at least get it to overtime.
14) Lundqvist said there were “a lot of good things but overall I don’t think this was enough to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins right now. You need a really strong game from everyone, starting with myself.”
15) And he was really good. I mean a breakaway shot from 15-18 feet, between the circles — a breakaway he couldn’t have possibly seen develop. A power-play bounce off a skate. And let’s face it, the Rangers weren’t winning with one goal … now one goal in the last 10 playoff periods on Garden ice (plus one disallowed, more on that later). He made back-to-back beauts on Letang’s spin-o-rama (I always feel like a donkey typing that) from the slot, and then Malkin from close range to keep it 1-0 for a while.
16) As for the power play goal, not sure about that call on Marc Staal. I mean, he and Carl Hagelin did get tangled. I thought Staal’s stick was in Hagelin’s mid-section or under his arm, and that Hagelin’s was caught in Staal’s arm, too. Lundqvist wasn’t a big fan of the call. “I did not agree with that call,” he said. “But it’s going to happen. It’s a fast game. I just thought it was a battle for a puck and it’s just tough when you give up a goal late in the period like that.”
17) Ben Lovejoy on Matt Murray: “When I was 21 years old I was drinking beers in my frat basement at this point in my life in April.”
18) I thought the Rangers really carried over their performance from Game 2 into the beginning of Game 3 (Momentum!). It started early Holy cow. Stepan with a solid hit along the back wall. Brady Skjei battling and jousting with Evgeni Malkin. Big Game Brass with a snarly backcheck. After a pair of good saves by both goalies (Murray on Stepan, Lundqvist on Phil Kessel), Brassard jabbed at Murray and shoved him in a scrum in front. Then Chris Kreider smushed Letang (again). Yandle earlier had that solo rush, around Malkin at center ice, and created two chances.
19) I was surprised – though maybe I really shouldn’t have been – at the early effort, especially on the backcheck and around the front of the net, which was missing for so many games during the regular season. There was a lot of action for a game that had just 30 shots on goal combined late in the second period.
20) The Rangers thought they had that early lead, and it was quite a play by two lines. During a double-minor to Conor Sheary, J.T. Miller took Skjei’s pass at the offensive blue line and got it deep. Skjei chased it down behind the icing line and kept it alive. Mats Zuccarello joined the play and got it to Kreider in front. Murray stopped his shot with a quick pad save, but the puck hit Malkin’s skate and went right back to Kreider, who put it behind Murray.
21) Not so Fast. Penguins coach Mike Sullivan challenged the play, and video review showed that Miller’s skate was offside by millimeters, thus wiping out the goal. Not going to complain about the call whatsoever, and neither did the Rangers, because it was the right call.
22) What I will say about the coach’s challenge on off-side plays: A) that so many goals are being taken off the board kind of tells you that linesmen have missed thousands and thousands of off-side calls; B) that is this really what the goal-starved NHL wants, goals disallowed because of a quarter of an inch that had no bearing on the play; and C) if they want to keep this silly rule, maybe they should consider making the blue lines much more narrow, which would help the replay, I think, because you don’t have the skate or the puck on the line as long. I think it would make it clearer which one crossed first. Not exactly sure why we need blue lines so wide anyway.
23) Anyway, 1-0 is wiped out. Until … Kreider, who I thought had another forceful game, and was all over Letang, took a boarding penalty 22 seconds into the second, against Patric Hornqvist, and what do you know? The Rangers not only killed it, but they got a shorty, too. I believe that Rick Nash became only the second Ranger to score a short-handed goal in 85 games this season (if I’m not mistaken, Stepan had all the others, but it’s past 2 a.m. and I’m not looking it up). Kevin Klein made the outlet and Nash beat Letang and sent a wrister far side past Murray. Three games, a goal and two assists for Nash.
24) As for the penalty on Kreider, I don’t have a problem if that’s the definition of boarding. But we all know it’s not, given Lovejoy’s boarding of Stepan in Pittsburgh, which was much more blatant and dangerous. Speaking of which, the boarding by Bellemare of Philly against Dmitry Orlov of the Capitals drew a one-game suspension. This is what it has come down to for the NHL Department of Well It’s The Playoffs and We’ve Gone Completely Soft (NHLDOWITPAWGCS). That kid could easily have broken his neck or been paralyzed. It was filthy, whether there was malice or not, the most dangerous type of foul. But, yeah, one game. That’ll teach him. Total steaming crock of incompetence. Clown show.
25) So with that in mind, I’m pretty certain that Letang is going to get off scott-free for Duncan Keith-ing Viktor Stalberg with his stick and cutting open his face, right in front of the official there, a wild swipe that looked extremely intentional. (VIDEO BELOW) No idea how the NHLDOWITPAWGCS thinks this is OK in its wildest dreams. It’s not OK. But they won’t do squat about it. Take it to the bank.
26) There were some comical moments, and some stupidity, too, in Game 3, like Trevor Daley pulling down Big Game Brassard from behind, in a scrum, long after a whistle. The comical included Lundqvist joining the rush on that delayed penalty, when the puck came to him as he headed to the bench, and it included another dust-up when, after Marc Staal took the penalty against Hagelin, his buddy Mats Zuccarello tickle-me-Elmo’d Hagelin behind the net. Then Kessel jumped in and went at Kreider, who put him in a headlock and laughed out loud. LOL.
27) I thought Ryan McDonagh looked pretty good for a guy with one good hand, although there was one time when he could have slapped a shot and he hesitated. He did take a smaller slapper later. He also had the mean hip check on Bryan Rush shortly after the Nash goal. I dare say that getting McDonagh back was bigger for the Rangers than getting Malkin back was for the Penguins, though Malkin was much better in Game 3 than he was in Game 2. Now what happens if Marc-Andre Fleury comes back after goaltender No. 3 and goaltender No. 2 have both won games in this series?
28) Skjei gets better every game he plays, and I thought he moved seamlessly to the right side, especially with McDonagh. The Rangers really might have something good with this kid.
29) Stalberg=Monster. How are they going to re-sign him?
30) I don’t even know what to say about the garbage they pulled in Philadelphia in Game 3 vs. the Capitals. I did enjoy the fact that Alex Ovechkin and the Capitals decided to just run up the score every time the Flyers did something stupid. Amazing that it remains in that franchise’s DNA to play that way, even with the relatively soft collection of players they now have, even under a coach that didn’t crawl from under the Philly rock.
31) Always, always great to see Brian Leetch, and the ovation he got at the Garden last night was pretty cool. Also the atmosphere at the World’s Most was really good … until the disallowed goal. Then it picked up again until the Crosby goal.
32) The Rangers do indeed have some real fans among their celebrity row. Some were there last night – John McEnroe, (should have been) Super Bowl MVP Justin Tuck, and now the Jets’ Nick Mangold, who takes up residence right behind the opponents bench, swigging beverages and absolutely verbally assaulting the visitors. Holy mackerel did he give it to the Penguins. I imagine Rick Tocchet might have turned and said something until he saw the size of Mangold.
33) Rangers fans shouldn’t cast aspersions and bust into the holier-than-thou thing. I mean, it’s only a handful that ruin the whole bunch, but how about the idiots chanting “Let’s Go Rangers”, and one clown hollering “Crosby Sucks” during a moment of silence for Ed Snider. Jackasses. There were also a few who did similar when they had the moment of silence for Paris earlier in the season. It really takes a special brand of ignorance.
34) Just checking. Do the Rangers still have that home-ice advantage they stole in Game 2? Because when they had it, Game 4 was scheduled at MSG, Game 5 at Pittsburgh, Game 6 at MSG, Game 7 at Pittsburgh. That’s still the schedule right? So they must still have it.
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My Three Rangers Stars:
1. Henrik Lundqvist.
2. Rick Nash.
3. Ryan McDonagh.
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Kenny Albert’s Three Rangers Stars:
1. Rick Nash.
2. Henrik Lundqvist.
3. Brady Skjei.
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Your poll vote for Three Rangers Stars:
1. Rick Nash.
2. Henrik Lundqvist.
3. Chris Kreider.
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