Blueshirts’ improbable run now about to get even more difficult
Rangers pick right time to end Hurricanes’ perfect home-ice run, win Game 7 and advance to date with Lightning in East final
This high-wire act cannot be labeled impossible, because the Rangers have somehow survived it again. Just call their run highly improbable, remarkable, and leave it at that.
Somehow, the Rangers won another Game 7 over Carolina, 6-2, in the Eastern Conference semifinals. They won it on the road, against a team that had captured seven straight home playoff games in Raleigh. They won it after falling behind twice in this series, and after facing two-game deficits in both series against the Penguins and Hurricanes.
They won it with two early power-play goals on Monday, against the best power-play-killing unit in the league. They won it with a goalie who again was forced to make a bushelful of tough saves, early and often. They won it after being badly outplayed for much of the time.
And here’s the weirdest part of it all: Despite all those unlikely events, Game 7 wasn’t really all that suspenseful. The Rangers had Igor Shesterkin in the crease, and they had a two-goal lead just eight minutes into the game and a three-goal lead at the end of the second period. Victory was assured.
The game was decided, really, by careless Carolina penalties. On consecutive Ranger power plays, Adam Fox flicked a wrist shot over the glove of Antti Raanta at 3:40 and then Chris Kreider deflected a pretty fake shot/pass from Mika Zibanejad past Raanta at 8:00.
“That comes from guys on the perimeter moving the puck well, coming up with loose pucks,” Kreider told ESPN, about his goal. “And you’ve got to respect Mika’s shot there.”
After Raanta was injured, Ryan Strome beat third-string goalie Pyotr Kochetkov over his blocker at 16:19 of the second period. Kreider’s second goal, a backhander at 4:01 of the third period, officially rendered this game a rout. Game, set, series.
The Rangers have reached the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 2015.
And now, for the bad news.
After 14 grueling, grinding playoff games; after coming back from those two-game deficits against Pittsburgh and Carolina… the Rangers are only halfway to a Stanley Cup. And they next must face the two-time defending champions, Tampa Bay Lightning.
What feels already like a successful trek to the summit of Mount Everest, is merely the establishment of a base camp.
Tampa Bay awaits, well-rested and well-schooled on those 14 Ranger playoff tapes. The Lightning owns the only NHL goalie, Andrei Vasilevskiy, comparable to Shesterkin.
Even if the Rangers scrap past Tampa Bay, the West is next. There could be as many as 14 more games left in this saga, with no guarantee of a happy ending.
It isn’t fair, it isn’t civil, but that’s the way the NHL likes it. More games mean more broadcast dollars. The Stanley Cup playoffs are the most brutal postseason in all of sports. Just ask the Dallas Stars, who played a record 27 playoff games two years ago, absorbed a lifetime of physical punishment, and came away with absolutely nothing. The Stars failed to make the playoffs the following season and have yet to recover.
The postseason wasn’t always this tortuous, of course. Back in 1960, the Montreal Canadiens required all of eight games — two series sweeps — to grab the outsized trophy. But then came expansion and leaguewide parity. In 1994 — a season Ranger fans remember well — the team needed 23 games to clinch the Cup. The campaign included Game 7 victories over the Devils and Canucks. That slog was certainly worth it, but it might easily have taken a nasty turn along the way.
So now come the Lightning, who knocked out the Rangers in the same round seven years ago. The nasty parallels from 2015 are obvious, if you want to drive yourself crazy. Back then, too, the Rangers held the home-ice advantage, after surviving a 3-1 deficit against the Capitals.
Those 2015 Rangers were the Comeback Kids, too. Then, against the Lightning, they weren’t. They lost in seven.
You never know, but Gerard Gallant’s light touch has certainly proved to be effective with this group of Rangers. Again, before Game 7, Gallant wasn’t about to get dramatic, or deliver some kind of emotional pep talk.
“Same as all year, not a whole lot of speech, maybe 20 seconds,” Gallant said. is strategy was actually really simple, Gallant said.
“I know what I’ve got and I’ve relied on [Shesterkin] all year,” he said. “You got to get your best players on the ice for the longest time.”
Sounds simple. Not impossible at all.
HBring on the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Rangers have advanced to the Eastern Conference Final for the first time in seven years.
They welcome a matchup with two-time defending Stanley Cup champions after doing the impossible in Game 7 on Monday night:
Beating the Carolina Hurricanes on their home ice. An indomitable Chris Kreider scored twice. Mika Zibanejad (three points), Adam Fox and Kreider paced a sizzling power play. And Igor Shesterkin continued to stand tall in a commanding 6-2 win in Raleigh, N.C. to eliminate the Metropolitan Division’s top-seeded Canes. “This is the kind of game that you dream about playing in growing up,” Kreider told ESPN at intermission.
The Rangers, now 5-0 in elimination games this postseason, earned the right to host Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final on Wednesday night at the Garden by shattering Carolina’s perfect 7-0 playoff record on home ice.
The Hurricanes could barely catch their breath before the Blueshirts’ power play struck twice in the game’s opening eight minutes.
Fox finished on a late rush from Alexis LaFreniere and Andrew Copp 3:40 in. Then Kreider tipped home a smart Zibanjed pass off a Fox assist 8:00 in.
Those goals, combined with Shesterkin’s continued superiority over Hurricanes goaltender Antti Raanta,
immediately established that Gerard Gallant’s group was going to come out on top for a second straight game to steal the series.
Raanta committed a turnover that led to Carolina’s first penalty, giving way to the Rangers’ first goal. In contrast, Shesterkin (36 saves) flashed his left pad to rob a Teuvo Teravainen breakaway that had threatened to immediately answer Kreider’s 2-0 tip-in.
Shesterkin is now 2-0 with 75 saves in Game 7s in these playoffs, including his 39-save performance against the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round, completing a series comeback from 3-1 down.
“Never comfortable [with giving up chances], but that’s what he does for us. [Shesterkin] gives us a chance to win,” Gallant told ESPN.
Once Raanta left Monday’s game injured at 15:37 of the second period, replaced by backup Pyotr Kochetkov, the Rangers left no doubt.
Ryan Strome finished short side off the rush at 16:19 for a 3-0 lead. Kreider went to his backhand on a powerful breakaway 3:59 into the third period to go up, 4-0.
And even when Tony DeAngelo broke Shesterkin’s shutout 8:11 into the third on a hectic play, Filip Chytil promptly answered off a Carolina turnover, going five-hole for a 5-1 lead at 8:51. Max Domi then added one late for the Canes, and Copp added an empty-netter for the Rangers.
This all adds up to the Rangers’ first Eastern Conference Final since 201415, when they fell in seven games to the Lightning, dropping Games 5 and 7 in 2-0 defeats at the Garden.
Ryan McDonagh was the Rangers’ captain then, playing the final three games of that series on a broken foot. Now he’s a defenseman on a Tampa team seeking a third straight Cup.
The Rangers were a perfect 3-0 against the Lightning this season, including 2-0 in Tampa. Jon Cooper’s team is rolling, though, on top of their obvious pedigree.
They’ve won six straight, sweeping the top-seeded Florida Panthers out of the second round after Games 6 and 7 wins over the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round.
Winger Nikita Kucherov (team-leading 15 points), defenseman Victor Hedman (10 points) and goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy (2.22 goals against average) are the headliners.
The Rangers have Shesterkin, however, plus a dominant man advantage anchored by Fox and Zibanejad. The Rangers scored a power play in the first period of the final five games of this Hurricanes series, including two in Monday night’s Game 7.
Zibanejad has a team-high 19 points this postseason. Fox has 18. Fox’s 10 points in elimination games this postseason is the most ever by any defenseman in a single playoffs, per ESPN.
Kreider has 15 career goals when facing elimination, the most in Rangers history, and one short of the NHL’s all-time leader, Mark Messier, per ESPN.
The Hurricanes had the NHL’s top power play unit in the regular season (88%) and had allowed two total Ranger goals and 1-on-7 power plays in the previous three games in Carolina this series.
But the Blueshirts broke through on Monday, boding well against the Lightning’s strong power play in these playoffs (87.8%).
The Colorado Avalanche and Edmonton Oilers face off in the Western Conference Final, set to start Tuesday.
And the Rangers are now poised to take on the two-time champions, looking to lift a Cup of their own before the spring is up.