That was pretty much it for the good news. In six periods of hockey, the Rangers have managed to score exactly one goal and generate a total of eight high-percentage scoring chances. To put that in perspective, in the first two games of the Pittsburgh Penguins series, the Rangers scored eight goals and generated twenty-two high-percentage scoring chances.
So what's responsible for the power outage? Certainly the opponent has had something to do with it. Let's face it, despite the marque talent on their roster, the Pens aren't exactly the defensive stalwarts the Canes are. Head coach Rod Brind'Amour has his team firing on all cylinders. As I wrote in an earlier piece, "they are a better, younger version of last year's Islanders."
But there might be another reason for why the Rangers offense has been so anemic in this series, and it may have something to do with the results of their four regular season meetings. If you recall, the Blueshirts went 1-3 against Carolina; their lone win was a 2-0 shutout, courtesy of Alexandar Georgiev stopping 44 shots. But it was their first meeting back in January in which the Hurricanes ran circles around them on their way to a 6-3 rout that might be screwing with their heads at this moment. It is quite possible that the coaching staff and players have concluded that the best chance they have of winning this series, or at least avoiding getting embarrassed, is to play risk free hockey, capitalize on the rare mistake, and let Igor do his thing.
For 57 and a half minutes in game one, that strategy looked as if it might work. Alexis Lafreniere intercepted a Tony DeAngelo errant pass, skated into the offensive zone and fed Filip Chytil for the one timer. 1-0 Rangers after one. And it stayed that way until the third when Sebastian Aho picked up his own rebound and put it past Shesterkin at 17:37 to tie the game. We all know what happened in OT, so let's not rehash that.
The bottom line is that the Rangers find themselves in an 0-2 hole because they've talked themselves into believing that if they open things up against a team as quick as the Hurricanes, they'll be sliced to ribbons. That might be the case, but putting a leash on players like Mika Zibanejad, Adam Fox, Chris Kreider and Artemi Panarin is the equivalent of hoisting up a white flag. You get no brownie points for losing 2-1 and 2-0. Playing not to lose virtually guarantees you will. Ask any football coach what employing the prevent defense did for his team. The annals of sports history are replete with examples of over cautious teams that thought they could run out the clock on their opponents. Few, if any, succeeded.
When the Rangers take the ice Sunday afternoon for game three of this series, they must do everything within their power to generate some offense. If that means that head coach Gerard Gallant has to mix up his lines to do so, then do it. For a team with this much firepower to be held to only one goal after two games is unacceptable. That the Kid line is the only line generating anything resembling a forecheck in this seres is something that should raise eyebrows within the dressing room.
Panarin spoke of not wanting to do "some stupid shit" with the puck, but there is a huge difference between being reckless with the puck and being timid. And right now, Panarin and his line mates look timid. Worse, they look indecisive. That was painfully obvious during a four-minute power play late in the second period, when Fox, pinching to try and keep the puck in the offensive zone, got caught on an odd-man rush that resulted in a short-handed goal by, of all people, Brendan Smith: the only Ranger who stood up to Tom Wilson last year. Irony abounds.
If the Rangers have any hope of getting back into this series, Panarin must be the player he was during the regular season when he finished fourth in the NHL in assists. When he's on his game, he's one of the best playmakers in the league. Is there a risk that one of those cross-ice passes could wind up in the back of their own net? Of course there is. But the Rangers aren't paying him $11 million a year to play like Tyler Motte or Barclay Goodrow, and asking him to do so now, with the season on the line, makes absolutely no sense.
If this is some sort of master plan by Gallant and company to lull the Hurricanes into a false sense of security, it isn't working. Brind'Amour could care less whether his team wins 2-1 or 5-4. A win is a win. To borrow a baseball parlance, they all look like line drives in the box score.
Look, the Rangers are who they are. It's the reason they won 52 games during the regular season and it's also the reason they were able to beat the Penguins in the first round. Should they go down swinging against an admittedly superior Hurricanes team, they can at least hold their heads up high knowing they gave it their best shot. But if they go out with a whimper, the way they've done so far in these first two games, it could have long-lasting repercussions for the core of this team. Chris Drury is trying to mold the Rangers into the image of the Tampa Bay Lightning. But before the Lightning could learn how to win, they had to first learn how to lose. Before they stopped doing "some stupid shit" with the puck they first had to do "some stupid shit" with the puck.
Translation, Gallant has to let his players off the leash. Will it work? Probably not. Sadly, the Hurricanes are just too good. But it will give the fans something to cheer for these next two games at the Garden. Who knows, if they can get the power play going, maybe they can extend the series to six games. Absent that, we're looking at a four-game sweep with the boo birds out in full force Tuesday evening.
Before we got married, my wife had this plaque that hung on her bedroom wall that read, "Ships are safe in the harbor, but ships were never meant to stay in the harbor."
Words to live - or die - by.
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