B R O A D W A Y***B L U E S H I R T S

April 26, 2008
Rangers Can't Stick to Script

Just about everything we thought might happen in this series happened in the opening game last night. We just never expected to see it all happen in one game. The first half of the game went almost exactly according to the script we laid out at Reel Sports Fan. The Rangers stopped a potent Penguin attack from the net out, starting with at least four super saves by Henrik Lundqvist when the Pens poured it on early on. They collapsed in their own end -- "Five men in the picture," as Tom Renney likes to say, as portrayed during the telecast. Then they countered the other way, taking advantage of some of their own offensive weapons.

The Rangers also won the special teams match-up in building a 3-0 lead, expertly killing off three Penguin power plays and striking quickly on one of their own. They got a goal from Sean Avery, the Ranger superpest striking at the Pens in one way even while not being the supreme agitator he is capable of being. And they quickly got to Marc-Andre Fleury, tearing his goals against average, save percentage, and string of games giving up three goals or less to shreds. It was all going the Rangers' way, maybe not exactly like they planned, but exactly like it had to go for them to win -- error-erasing goaltending, team defense, counterattack goals, special teams play, X-factor Avery.

And just like that, it changed -- and it changed just like we thought it might. It started of course with a goal that never should have been scored -- yet another deflection into the net by a Ranger. Yes, the Rangers scored a goal off a Penguin skate earlier, but that wasn't an accident, it was a play that stood a good chance of going into the net no matter who deflected it in. The Pens got on the board on a harmless little pass to no one in the crease that Michal Rozsival saw all the way and still kicked into his own net with no Pittsburgh player near him.

We said it the other day -- Lundqvist was going to have not let these kinds of goals, which plagued him throughout the regular season and in the first round, get to him. You can't fault him for the goal that came 14 seconds later, Christian Backman being responsible for the turnover to Sidney Crosby and several other defenders responsible for leaving Pascal Dupuis open in front. But we knew the Pens would get those kinds of chances, we knew the Rangers, Backman in particular, would commit those kinds of turnovers, and we knew it was going to be up to Lundqvist to erase those mistakes to keep the Pens from doing exactly what they did -- cut a commanding 3-0 Ranger lead to one within a matter of seconds.

The scenario repeated itself in the third period -- a fluke goal, somehow deflecting off or through the skate of Scott Gomez on a shot from the corner, followed twenty seconds later by another defensive miscue (or set of miscues) that Lundqvist had no chance of erasing. Then came the final scene in the script everyone had written for this series -- the Crosby effect. Only two penalties were called after the middle of the second period, both of them embellished by Crosby. On the first, Dubinsky was called for a trip despite never touching Crosby. The Rangers killed that one off. Late in the third, Martin Straka was called for interfering with Crosby, and this time the Pens scored -- a deflection by Evgeni Malkin of a Crosby shot that was going wide.

Did Straka interfere with Crosby? Possibly. He was also cross-checked hard in front of the net seconds earlier when the Rangers were attacking, with no call. And with Gomez having swatted the puck off Marian Hossa's stick, neither team had possession, so it may have been Crosby interfering with Straka -- or more likely just two players battling for a loose puck. The difference is, Crosby dove, so he got the call, a call that was not being made any other time in the game on behalf of any other player, let alone at such a critical juncture.

Did the call put the Rangers in a position to lose? In that particular situation, yes it did -- it allowed the Pens to break a tie and score the winning goal. But the Rangers obviously put themselves in the position for such a call to make a difference -- they had a three-goal lead, they had the Pens in disarray and their fans sitting on their hands, they had their goalie wondering if was ever going stop another shot. Game 1 was there not only for the taking, it was easy pickings. Then another own-goal, and another turnover that Lundqvist could not erase -- lather, rinse, repeat -- and the matter was taken out of the Rangers' hands and placed onto Crosby's diving board.

The good news is, after blowing a big lead, after three deflections and two Crosby calls, after solving Fleury and withstanding everything Crosby, Malkin, and Hossa threw at them except for bad luck, the Rangers were a Jaromir Jagr goal post away from sending the game into overtime. They have bounced back from adversity like this all season long. So when Gomez said this game is over, it doesn't matter how it was lost , it's on to the next game, one can come away from this knowing that there is still enough left in the Rangers' arsenal to turn this outcome and this series around.