After game four of the Pittsburgh series, Gerard Gallant said his team was "soft;" after game five of the Carolina series, Gallant said his team was "tired;" and after game four of the Tampa series, Gallant said his team wasn't willing to "pay the price."
The common theme in all three games - aside from the fact that they were losses - is that the Rangers simply didn't do enough to win. Translation, sometimes your biggest opponent is the one staring back at you in the mirror.
None of that is meant to detract from the excellent job the Lightning have done since going down 0-2 in the Eastern Conference finals. Make no mistake about it: the Lightning have awoken and are playing every bit like the two-time Stanley Cup champions they are. They are making smart passes out of their zone; their speed is proving problematic for the Rangers D; they are clogging up the neutral zone, thus making it difficult for the Rangers to gain the offensive zone; and with each shift, Andrei Vasilevskiy is looking more and more like the Conn Smythe trophy winner he was last season.
But let's be honest here. Did anyone seriously believe that this proud team was going to lay down and call it a night after game two? Did the Rangers lay down after the Penguins routed them 7-2 in game four? The answer to both is no. Good teams find a way to bounce back, and that's exactly what the Lightning have done; they've bounced back. To quote Gallant's double negative, "They've won, what, ten series in a row? We're going to have to take it from them. They're not going to give us nothing."
To beat the Lightning, the Rangers are going to have to bring a helluva lot more effort than they showed in games three and four. Apart from the two power play goals they scored in game three and the meaningless one they scored late in game four, Vasilevskiy was hardly tested. He had maybe a half dozen high-quality scoring chances against in game three and almost none in game four.
New York hasn't scored at 5v5 since Mika Zibanejad's goal at 1:21 of the third period in game two. If you're counting, that's over 138 minutes without an even strength goal. Not to be a dick, but the Rangers couldn't beat the Hartford Wolf Pack with that kind of offensive output. If that metric doesn't change immediately, this will be the last home game of the season for the Blueshirts. The Bolts will wrap this series up in six.
So how do the Rangers turn it around? It won't be easy. This isn't the Pens they're playing, or even the Canes. Those opponents were tough, but they lacked the one thing the Lightning have in droves: playoff experience. Tampa has been here before; they know what it takes to win. And they will draw from that collective experience when they take the ice tonight. And to make matters worse, the Rangers might not have Ryan Strome or Filip Chytil in the lineup. Strome suffered a lower body injury in game three and Chytil suffered an upper body injury in game four. Even if both are able to return, they will not be at a hundred percent.
For starters, the Rangers have to play with the same sense of desperation the Lightning played with in games three and four. That means they must be willing to "pay the price," as their coach said. It isn't just enough to throw their weight around, they have to sellout in the corners where hockey games are often decided. In both games at Tampa, the Lightning virtually owned the boards. If you can't mount an effective forecheck in this league, you aren't going to win many games.
Another thing they have to do is dump the puck into the offensive zone. The Lightning are borrowing a page out of the Hurricanes playbook by taking away the passing lanes that allow the Rangers to set up their transition game. It's the number one reason why their 5v5 offense has stalled. To circumvent this, the Rangers not only have to be willing to shoot the puck into the zone, they have to do so with authority. They have to get on Tampa's wings quick and force their defensemen to handle the puck more. Over the last two games, it has been way too easy for the Lightning to get the puck out of their end.
The good news is that if the Rangers can manage even one even strength goal and convert on a couple of power plays, Igor Shesterkin should be able to make that stand up. He's been there for this team all season long, but as we saw in game three, he can't do it all by himself. To paraphrase Ringo Starr, he needs a little help from his friends.
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