The Rangers extended their win streak to five with a 3-1 victory over the Flyers on Wednesday to take a three-point lead over Philadelphia in the battle for second place in the division and home-ice in the first round of the playoffs. The victory was New York's eighth straight at MSG over Philly, during which they have outscored the orange and black 31-9. Of course, once the playoffs start, if the two teams do meet, that stat can be thrown out the window as it won't meet much. Despite the loss, Philly still is in striking distance with two games in hand and just three points back of New York.
Game Highlights:
Once again, it was the fourth line that made the difference. Brian Boyle-Dominic Moore-Derek Dorsett dominated their opponents, shift-by-shift, with the goals contributed by that trio a major benefit. I know Boyle gets a bad rap, but he does lots of the little things that don't always show up in the scoresheet but are key components to winning. Boyle is solid defensively, decent in the face-off circle and plays on the penalty kill. In addition, while he doesn't always use his size as much as we would like, he is strong on the forecheck. All those who say he is "overpaid" at $1.7 mil per, I say you are crazy. Maybe we all got our hopes up too high when he scored 20+ goals, but for what he provides, I think $1.7 mil per is more than fair and possibly even a steal seeing what others are paid. Granted D. Moore is only making about a mil, but that's because he missed last year due to tragedy and if you can get a fourth line to do what the Rangers fourth line has done lately for anywhere between $3.5 and $4.3 mil depending on if Dorsett or Carcillo is in the lineup, it's a pretty good bargain. The Rangers lost to the Devils and Boston the past two years in the playoffs. A good portion of the reason for the loss was how outplayed the Blueshirts' fourth line was, now, at worse, those matchups would be even and likely tilted in the Rangers' favor.
New York played a good but not great game. To me, they gave Philly too much room in the neutral zone at times, especially after it was 1-0, enabling the Flyers to outshoot the Rangers 11-1 from that point to the end of the period. That said, overall, they were strong in their own end, limiting the good opportunities. New York got better as the game wore on, using an aggressive forecheck to take away time and space from the Flyers, who didn't do a great job of puck possession and control. Offensively, the Rangers cycle were able to generate chances, while defensively, they forced Philly wide, clogging the middle and allowing them the points. But New York blocked 21 shots and cleared the slot and crease, save for a few instances. When the Flyers got down low and had a quality scoring opportunity, Henrik Lundqvist came up big. The biggest saves he made were after Ryan McDonagh made it 2-0 with a great read, pinch and shot over Steve Mason's blocker, giving 14 goals, the most by a Rangers d-man since Brian Leetch scored 21 in 2000-01. Lundqvist stopped Michael Raffl at the right post, then was able to push across and rob Adam Hall's shot with his pad and blocker off the rebound from Raffl's initial shot. That was Philly's real last gasp until the goal with 1:53 left by Jacob Voracek to make it 3-1.
The Flyers tried to pick up their attack in the third, and may have had a few chances, but Derick Brassard made two great defensive plays to thwart opportunities. His first enabled the Rangers to regain possession, put the puck in the Flyers' zone, where Raffl's attempted clear was corralled by Kevin Klein and his shot on net resulted in the Blueshirts' third goal on Moore's defection. At that point, I was waiting for the chippy stuff, and for a while it looked like it may not happen, but how wrong I was.
If Andrew MacDonald doesn't take his penalty and Marc Staal get one on the man advantage for stupidity hitting the stick out of Raffl's hands, maybe it doesn't happen. But Claude Giroux won the ensuing draw cleanly, got over to Voracek and he made it 3-1 with 1:53 left. I don't know about you, but now I am thinking Philly has a man advantage in about 23 seconds, they will pull Mason, making it a 6-on-4 and if they score quick, it's 3-2 and nail-biting time. Fortunately, the Rangers killed off the penalty, but late the expected garbage started.
Yes, McDonagh did check Wayne Simmonds but that's the usual jostling in front of the net and it wasn't a two-handed check to the lower vack. Simmonds responded by slashing Mack Truck high on his glove, knocking it off, and the second slash fortunately just missed his bare hand, catching McDonagh on the knee. Hartnell, likely frustrated in general and more specific after he blasted earlier along the boards by Girardi, started in and it looked like it might totally get out of control. Fortunately, the officials got control, but if it's like this in game 74, just wait to if the two teams do meet in the playoffs for the first time since 1997, you may need six officials on the ice. While the Rangers aren't as big as they once were, they have played that way lately, refusing to back down. As Carp put it: "They’re never going to out-physical teams like that, or even Columbus or Pittsburgh, especially Boston, and some of the big Western teams. But the Rangers took hits to make plays, blocked a ton of shots (like ‘11-12), didn’t back down, didn’t throw away a lot of pucks to avoid hits, pushed back, and most importantly, toughened up around their own net. They did. Outside of the two division leaders, I give them a reasonable-to-good shot in any other Eastern best-of-seven." That last sentence is solely I wholeheartedly agree with, though there is still a long way to go in the regular season with nothing clinched and obviously the post-season when they hopefully get there.
The main negative lately has been the power play, which is a shell of how it looked when it was rolling. Maybe the combinations need to be tweaked again, but it's no longer a weapon, which was a big issue last year. I thought JT Miller was okay, nothing great and no major mistakes. It was good for him to play in a game like this given the focus, which should ease his transition moving forward.
The Playoff Race:
Starting with 12 games to go, scoreboard watching became the sport inside of the sport. As of March 27, the Rangers sit second in the division, 41-29-4 with 86 points. When I do a recap or game preview blog, I will include this at the bottom of the blog. However, on non-game/recap days, I will run this daily since this is a huge topic of conversation and a large component of our focus.
Wednesday, the only game with applicability was the Rangers-Flyers contest. Thursday, there are many games with some applicability and I am considering those that could indirectly impact races as well as those that could have an impact on standings placement down the road when in the post-season, depending on who wins first and second round matchups. Direct - Mtl-Det. Indirect (overall standings) - NYI-TB
Division:
Philly- lost 3-1 to LA on 3/26, their second straight defeat. 6-3-1 last 10, two games in hand on the Rangers, three points behind NY, in third place. (played 36 games at home, 36 on road, five left at home, five on road)
Columbus - won 4-2 over Detroit on 3/25 , 5-4-1 in last 10, two games in hand, fourth in the division and six points behind the Rangers. First Wild Card. (played 36 games at home, 36 on road, five left at home, five on road)
Washington - lost 5-4 in a shootout to LA on 3/25, 5-4-1 last 10, one game in hand, fifth in division and six points behind NY. (played 37 games at home, 36 on road, four left at home, five on road)
New Jersey - won 3-2 over Toronto on 3/23, 5-5-0 last 10, two games in hand, 11 points behind NY. (played 35 games at home, 37 on road, six left at home, four on road) (will drop off with next loss or two)
Carolina - 3-2 win over Winnipeg on 3-22, 5-5-0 last 10, two games in hand, 15 points behind NY. (played 36 games at home, 35 on road, five left at home, six on road) (likely to drop off list with next loss)
Conference (teams within 10 either way, as Boston has a lock of Atlantic division, with second, third and wild cards up for grabs)
Montreal - second in Atlantic, won 2-0 over Buffalo on 3/25, three straight wins, 6-4-0 last 10, no games in hand and one point up on Rangers. (played 38 games at home, 36 on road, three left at home, five on road)
Tampa Bay - third in Atlantic, lost 4-3 in a shootout to Ottawa on 3/24, two straight losses, 5-1-4 last 10, two games in hand and three points up on Rangers. (played 34 games at home, 38 on road, seven left at home, three on road)
Detroit - tied for fourth place in Atlantic, but two games in hand on Toronto. Lost 4-2 to Columbus on 3/25 and two straight, 5-4-1 last 10, two games in hand and six points behind the Rangers. Second Wild Card. (played 36 games at home, 35 on road, five left at home, six on road)
Toronto - tied for fourth place in Atlantic but actually behind Detroit due to games played, lost 5-3 to St. Louis on 3/25 and six in a row, 3-7-0 last 10, no games in hand and six points behind the Rangers. (played 37 games at home, 37 on road, four left at home, four on road)
Ottawa - sixth place in Atlantic, won 4-3 in shootout over TB, 2-6-2 last 10, two games in hand, 14 points behind the Rangers and nine behind last Wild Card spot. (played 34 games at home, 37 on road, seven left at home, four on road). (likely to drop off with another loss or two)
Summary: Two huge wins over Columbus and New Jersey, followed by a gut-check win over Phoenix and solid team effort in victory over Philly The Rangers the past several seasons have been excellent down the stretch, to lock in a spot, they may need to do the same thus year. Upcoming is a possible make-or-break, four-game West Coast road trip from 3/28 to 4/3. Remaining games overall are five on the road and three at home in general and coming out of the last four of the season. The Rangers are going to get no help from others, so they will need to keep winning in order to make the post-season.
In order:
3/21- @ CMB - win 3-1 3/22 - @NJ - win 2-0 3/24 - Phx - win 4-3, OT 3/26 - Phi - win 3-1 3/28 - @Cgy 3/30 - @Edm 4/1 - @Van 4/3 - @Col 4/5 - Ott 4/8 - Car 4/10 - Buf 4/12 - @Mtl