OTTAWA — Lose one game in dramatic fashion, and it is hard to swallow. Lose two in a row, and suddenly the Rangers’ season is on the verge of asphyxiation. Three utterly jarring moments in succession from Senators center Jean-Gabriel Pageau handed the Rangers a gruesome defeat, a 6-5 loss in double-overtime in Game 2 […]
Read MoreOTTAWA — The game was a mess, but what a glorious, unpredictable, entertaining playoff mess it was. Unless, of course, you are Henrik Lundqvist, one of his teammates or one of the citizens of Rangerstown. Then it was a disaster. Give Lundqvist and the Rangers a two-goal lead in the third period of a playoff […]
Read MoreOTTAWA — Alain Vigneault has often preached about the importance of depth in the playoffs, but he surely didn’t live that way in Game 2. The Rangers coach shortened his bench at the start of the third period, and kept it that way until his team lost to the Senators, 6-5, in double-overtime on Saturday […]
Read MoreOTTAWA — So I wonder who the clown is here: the charismatic player who dances a little jig during a playoff pregame warm-up, or the suit in the general manager’s chair who trades 21-year-old Roberto Luongo in order to select Rick DiPietro first overall in the draft instead of Marian Gaborik or Dany Heatley? Hint: […]
Read MoreOTTAWA — This is a Rangers team built on veteran leadership, but one that is significantly younger than in years past. Thus much of their success this season has been predicated on the maturation of those young players, none more impressive than rookie defenseman Brady Skjei. The 24-year-old had a monster first-round series against the […]
Read MoreIt should not have happened, but it did. Alain Vigneault should not have “lost” Brendan Smith in the third period of Saturday’s stunning second-guess feast of a Game 2, 6-5 double-overtime defeat in Ottawa. But the coach on Sunday admitted that’s just what happened. “I was looking for certain matchups and sometimes within a game’s […]
Read MoreThe message from Alain Vigneault was twofold: 1) He’s pretty happy with the way the Rangers have played, despite being down 2-0 in their best-of-seven second-round series with the Senators; 2) He’s got nothing against the younger players, and the minutes he allots are based more on individual performance in that game rather than the […]
Read MoreFueled by a difference in the schedule, the Rangers held hope that they weren’t going to repeat themselves with a dud performance in Game 3 of their second-round series just as they did at the same juncture in the first round. Having lost in overtime in Montreal in Game 2 of the first round, the […]
Read MoreThe questions patiently tolerated by Henrik Lundqvist following Monday’s practice related to Saturday’s Game 2 in Ottawa in which the goaltender did not have the right stuff while allowing six goals on 34 shots in the Rangers’ double-overtime 6-5 defeat. There was one, then another and then another about the performance through which he just […]
Read MoreThere is no more consolation for playing well. The Rangers can talk all they want about what they did right up in Ottawa for the first two games of this second-round playoff series, but the fact is they’re in a 2-0 hole to the Senators in the best of seven. Now the situation is that […]
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