The Rangers blew another two-goal lead in Game 2, falling in double-overtime, 5-4 to the Kings. Given that LA ha come back from two-goal in three straight contests and five of their past eight games, one could argue that it's hard to say New York "blew" the game, but that's how I feel and how it looks. I will touch on several points in this blog: the Kings, Quick. the Rangers top line, Richards, the defense, Lundqvist, the refs, emotion and rebound, and as most of you know, I call it as I see it regardless of my rooting interest for the Rangers.
Angry, Disappointed. Frustrated. Those were my emotions last night, which partially contributed to the slight delay in posting this blog, for fear I would get myself banned from my own blog if i wrote what i was feeling then. Those emotions still resonate inside me, which I am sure is what every member affiliated with the Rangers' organization feels this morning. The two losses have been like shots to the solar plexus, each one building on the other. New York had their work cut out for them before the series even started and the task has gotten markedly harder.
Game Lowlights:
The Kings. Come back from two-goals down once, you can say they are lucky. Doing it twice, less so. Three times in a row and five in eight games, throw luck out the window. They are deep, talented, physical and have a tremendous amount of confidence in themselves. Many teams, especially in the Cup Finals, when down two goals might change their game. Not LA. Coach Darryl Sutter will mix and match lines, but the style of play doesn't change. They come at you over and over. Their depth down the middle is something to behold while the defense makes enough plays to win. Maybe they need to be down two goals to get into the game, but when they do, the switch flips. Plus, if you give them any sort of momentum, it builds and feeds off itself, which enables them to get to another level. Linda Cohn said they reminder her of the Islanders from the early-80s, and I could see that comparison.
Quick. He hasn't been great by any stretch but when he has to make a big save, he does. Quick has given the Rangers top-shelf, but only Martin St. Louis was able to beat him Saturday. Mats Zuccarello had a glorious chance after controlling the puck behind the net, but missed high. Derick Brassard late in the first overtime had wide side, top shelf, but got Quick in the shoulder. Chris Kreider on a breakaway but Quick got a piece of it. He has allowed six goals through two games, but come up big when needed and shut NY down late to give LA chances to win.
Kreider-Stepan-Nash. I actually though that line had a pretty good game, especially Kreider, but the bottom line is production. Kreider was stopped by Quick on the aforementioned breakaway, then after a good shift by Stepan and Nash, he hit the post on a feed from Nash. To me, the biggest failing was on the fourth goal. Nash has to make sure the puck gets out of the zone at the blue line, Stepan cut off Ryan McDonagh's path, though his path was impeded by Anze Kopitar plus McDonagh should not have been going up the center of the ice. In addition, after the first shot, Kreider had a weak clear, allowing Marian Gaborik to get a second shot and score. The line had good moments but it's a bottom line business. That said, while Nash hasn't scored, anyone who watched the game last night with their criticism goggles off would have seen him using his size and speed to create chances. Now, he has to bury them. If Nash plays as he did Saturday, i believe he will break through this series.
Richards, You may be a good leader in the clubhouse and a big reason why Martin St. Louis has been able to assimilate well with this team, but I am sorry to say, your time in NY is done. Richards was solid in the first round, but since then, he has mainly been invisible. Last night, his horrific attempted clear in the second resulted in the first goal of the game for Los Angeles. Twenty seconds after Marian Gaborik tied the game, Richards had a golden chance in front, where if he lifts the puck, it's likely a goal, and he puts into Quick's pads. In overtime, his inability to carry the puck up ice and lack of foot speed, almost ended the game then and there for Los Angeles.
You can forget AV benching Richards, that's not how he handles this team and he saw what happened last year when Torts did it. Richards is a proud athlete, he had a solid overall season and first round of the playoffs, but since then, the wheels have fallen off. Given the potential cap hit down the road combined with the lack of production, Richards has anywhere from two to five games left as a New York Ranger.
The defense. Dan Girardi had a rebound game after his turnover the other night but Ryan McDonagh was so-so. Yes, he had the first goal of the game for NY but on the game-winner, he allowed Dustin Brown to get inside position. In addition, he made a silly move on the game-tying one, trying to go up the middle and turning over the puck, McDonagh was partially at the center of the third goal, as he and Dwight King got tied up, and I will discuss that more later. The second and third pairings were okay, nothing great. I thought Kevin Klein was solid again, John Moore was fine while Staal and Stralman were on ice for the first goal, thought hard to blame them following the Richards' turnover. But all of them need to be a lot better moving forward.
Lundqvist. It's amazing that I see people taking Lundqvist to task. He kept the team in the first game. Saturday, the first goal, he got caught out of position but was hurt by a bad bounce. The second goal, he never saw but you could maybe he should have been able to see around King. The third, I discussed above and more to come below. The fourth one, McDonagh turnover, initial save, bad clear by Stepan and no chance. The last one by Brown, Lundqvist was in perfect position, but it was a great deflection for the goal.
Yes, he has allowed eight goals, but how many more has he prevented? You want to criticize him, be my guest. But he is the least of the issues right now. Granted, in Game 3, they need a Lundqvist circa Washington series 2012 in Games 6 and 7, Pittsburgh 2014 in Game 7 and Montreal in Game 6 this year performance to win, but he is not the main problem.
The referees. Horrific overall. From the goaltender interference call on Benoit Pouliot when he was outside the blue paint and bumped into Quick. THE NON-GOALTENDER INTERFERENCE CALL. The ridiculous interference call on Justin Williams on Rick Nash, which was a make up call at best, though given where penalty occurred and situation, not even close to evening the scale. Then the missed puck over the glass in overtime, where 30 seconds or so later, on the same rush, LA won the game.
Referee Dan O'Halloran said to Lundqvist that the puck was past him when the contact occurred. I am not sure what he was watching, since if you look at both videos and the still pictures below, it's clear that wasn't the case. The puck was clearly not past him and King's presence in the crease limited his mobility to move to right and extend
Look at the still pictures towards the bottom in this link: http://t.co/5GDtaOiJlj
This is from rule 69.1:
Goals should be disallowed only if: (1) an attacking player, either by his positioning or by contact, impairs the goalkeeper’s ability to move freely within his crease or defend his goal
TSN was pretty adamant that the call was blown: http://www.tsn.ca/VideoHub/?collection=72&show=377838
Look, NY had ample time to stop LA from tying it, and even when it was tied, to win the game. They failed to do so, plain and simple. But the missed call turned the momentum again, and instead of being up by two, the lead was halved with 18 minutes to go and the tide shifted to the Kings. Those are excuses, bottom line, the Rangers had two goal leads in both games and lost them. Credit goes to the Kings, regardless of how crappy the officiating has been, though that doesn't mean we should be happy about it or not believe it had a material impact on the end result.
Emotion and Rebound. New York has been a resilient group all season. They had to be after their horrible start. Then when trailing 3-1 to Pittsburgh and written off. Now, down 2-0, coming off two devastating losses, it would be easy to say they are dead and the series is over. I don't think so.
History overall is not on their side, But recent history gives some hope, as Boston came back from 2-0 down against Vancouver in 2011 and Pittsburgh did same against Detroit in 2009. So why not us?
Find a way to win Game 3 in front what hopefully will be a raucous MSG crowd. They have showed they can play with the Kings. Other than the third period in Game 1, New York has taken what LA has dished out and responded, carrying play for good portions of the games. All the Kings have done is hold serve at home. Now it's the Rangers turn. Win Game 3, then repeat it in Game 4. I am not saying it will be easy, not by any stretch of the imagination, but of you think they are done, you don't know this Rangers team.
Heart. Passion. Effort. Desire. I am still all in, a True Blue fan, what about you?