In a flip of the script from Thursday's loss, did the Rangers lose by winning Saturday. The Rangers closed out the regular season with a 3-2 victory over the Red Wings. That win coupled with the Isles' 4-3 overtime loss to the Sabres, leaves the Blueshirts one point ahead of the subway rivals. An Islanders' win of any sort Sunday versus a Philly team with nothing to play for would push them ahead of the Rangers for third in the Metro. A loss keeps the Blueshirts in the third spot and a match up against the Penguins, while a win by Isles gives them the three seed and has the Rangers facing the Panthers in the first round of the playoffs.
This won't be a long blog as the first paragraph said it all and we have discussed who would be better to face in round one. If the Isles lose, it will be NYR-PIT with the winner to face the WAS-PHI winner. The Flyers clinched their playoff berth with a 3-1 win Saturday over the Penguins, who sat Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang and lost Matt Murray during the game with a concussion. If the Isles win, the Rangers get Florida and the winner of TB-Det. The Red Wings continued their playoff streak - last failing to make the postseason in 1990 - with Boston's 6-1 loss to Ottawa.
If you are the Islanders, do you really want to win and face Pittsburgh? It's probably more important to rest up and make sure your stars don't get hurt. Already without Anders Lee and Travis Hamonic for the playoffs and several others banged up and out for now, though back in the postseason, why risk getting Tavares or Okposo hurt in what is a meaningless game? The same can be said about Philly, as they have already clinched a spot. Maybe the stars play early, but would it shock any of us if several sat the entire game, or at least the latter part of it?
Despite an uneven year, the Rangers finished 46-25-9. New York could have mailed it in and it looked like they might be doing so, sitting Henrik Lundqvist (rest) along with Mats Zuccarello and Viktor Stalberg (the latter two due to bumps in bruises). The team was already without Ryan McDonagh (fractured metacarpals) and Dan Girardi (possible concussion), so five of 20 regulars were out. We knew right away NY would play this straight up, as AV challenged a Red Wings just 2:4 into the game. The call was reversed, but it would have been easy not to challenge it and keep the goal on the board if tanking.
Dan Boyle scored the first goal on a 2-on-1, Kevin Hayes tipped in a Dylan McIlrath shot for the second while Oscar Lindberg's empty net goal closed out the scoring for NY. As Slimtj noted, Lindberg has the first and last Rangers' regular season goals. Antti Raanta made 31 saves, several of them spectacular, as the Rangers' defense left too many forwards open in front once again. The one bit of good news was that Eric Staal, who was hit in back of the head/neck by Jesper Fast while he was looking down for the puck after facing off against Luke Glendening, wasn't injured badly.
All that can be done now is to wait until about 9:30-10PM tomorrow to see who NY plays. Either Pit, possibly Wednesday, or Florida on Thursday.