The Rangers allowed Tampa Bay to control action throughout much of Game 3. Despite rallying twice, New York fell 6-5 on a Nikita Kucherov's goal 3:33 into the first overtime. While Game 4 is not a must, to me, it is a Game 7 for New York as trying to rally from 3-1 down again may be too high of a hill to climb.
The issues that were very evident in Game 2 reared their ugly head again. The Lightning dominated the Rangers (in terms of shots) as seen by the graph below from Hockeystats.ca (http://hockeystats.ca/game/2014030313). New York failed to limit space and time once again, backing off at the blue line too often while also allowing Tampa to sit unchecked in the crease. Lastly, stick checks rather than physical play doesn't work against the Lightning. Many of the goals in Game 3 came as a result of those mistakes.
Lightning dominated the Rangers (in terms of shots) http://t.co/bEZXoPT0VI pic.twitter.com/I7ffzukmmW
— hockeystats.ca (@HockeyStatsCa) May 21, 2015Carp put it well: "if the Rangers don’t get back to defending — in all three zones, smarter with pucks, not chasing pucks, taking care of the area around their net, etc., this could be over quickly." After Game 2 and heading into Game 3, New York said all the right things about not making stupid errors and being more disciplined. To a large extent, it ended up being lip service. While New York stayed out of the box for the most part, the same type of issues seen in Game 2 were evident in force in Game 3.
New York got sucked into the siren call of open ice. Both the Pittsburgh and Washington series were played in a tight checking, space limiting manner. That forced the Rangers to adjust their strategy of consistently using their speed and stretches passes to one of picking and choosing their spots while playing solid defensively. This series has been more fire wagon hockey and a track meet, which plays into Tampa's hands, given their level of offensive talent. To win this series or at least even it up, New York has to play as they did in Game 1. Limit the neutral zone space, stand the forwards up at the blue line and cover the crease. Each item seems to be a no-brainer and should be the way the Rangers have been playing to date but Tampa has seemingly taken advantage of every bobble and misstep made by New York. That attention to detail needs to be priority one because as we have seen, playing the style New York has used in Games 2 and 3 hasn't worked.
Let me get to a few other concerns:
AV has been outcoached. That is clear on the PP entries, as Tampa has been able to gain the zone way too easily. In addition, once the Lightning has gained the zone, they are using cross ice passes and darts into space to result in golden chances. That was the case in Game 1 and 2 which didn't get remediated at all and got worse in Game 3.
In addition, while we love to criticize AV, the burden is also on the players. If you want to say that MSL should be benched either in game or completely and maybe Rick Nash in game, no argument. If you want to argue the strategy that NY is utilizing in the series is flawed, no doubt. But to blame him for everything is unfair as some and a large portion of the blame has to sit with the players.
Nash and MSL. Each have struggled tremendously. As noted above, you can easily argue that each should be benched. Be it overall or during the game. Nash isn't sitting, regardless of the lack of production. MSL likely should be different. He hasn't shown anything to date. Personally, I would insert Oscar Lindberg and have him play center on the third line, shifting Kevin Hayes to wing alongside Carl Hagelin. That would be a line solid defensively but one with the speed and capability to provide offense.
Henrik Lundqvist. To solely put the blame on Hank and say Cam Talbot should be in is ridiculous. New York would not be in the ECF if not for Lundqvist. But he has not played great the past two games, evidenced by the 12 goals against. The first one, Lundqvist has to freeze or put it in corner. The game-winner, he was way too deep in his net and got burned on the Royal Road, which is where Tampa has scored a lot of their goals this series. That said, he stoned a breakaway in the first and JT Brown in the overtime, keeping New York in the game.
The problems are that the blueline and forwards have been horrific defensively, as noted above. Chris Kreider, for all the good work he does, let his defensive responsibility lapse and bang, a goal in front. Then in his desire to be physical, he took out Girardi and another goal was on the board. The end result has been 28 goals allowed in six games versus Tampa this year. Maybe we just have to tip our hat to them and say they are better. But, New York showed in Game 1 the blueprint on how possibly to beat them. That starts and likely ends with Lundqvist, who does have to better and much more consistent than he has been to date.
Girardi/Boyle/Stralman - we can go through revisionist history all we want. The prevailing view of many is that G is a second line d-man improperly paid as a first liner. That may very well be the case but when you look at the top-four, you could say they are interchangeable.
I wanted Stralman back. Sather should have made sure that happened. I don't believe re-signing G precluded keeping Stralman. Additional negotiations should have occurred and Stralman brought back. But once the Rangers knew Dan Boyle was interested, New York's desire to bring back Stralman waned. Boyle, despite all the criticism, has actually had a good playoffs. Defensively, he makes you cringe at times but he has produced offensively. Girardi, after a good first two series, has been exposed against Tampa due to his lack of foot speed.
Stralman is better than each. No question. We can rehash this over and over again, but the decision isn't going to be changed. You want to blame Sather, feel free but to consistently harp on this theme is getting tiresome. It's known. It was a flawed decision and mistake. Now move on.
I will cover this more tomorrow but as noted above Game 4 is like Game 7. You can't expect to go down 3-1 again and recover, especially against this team. They need to fix the issues I noted above or quickly. If not--- well you can fill in the rest.
As a heads up and reminder, I am out of the box after tomorrow afternoon. Russ Cohen will get a Game 4 recap blog up over the weekend and then Game 5 preview one up Monday.