OTTAWA — In some inexplicable way, it seems that one loss, and the way it happened, has made the opportunity in front of the Rangers all the more tangible.
There is no longer any reason to beat around the bush with this team that might have started the season with uncertainty but now has nothing but hoisting the Stanley Cup in their sights. They came into their second-round series with the Senators as the heavy favorite, then lost Game 1 on Thursday night at Canadian Tire Centre on a fluke goal from Erik Karlsson from behind the goal line.
If their first-round victory over the Atlantic Division-winning Canadiens in six games was a sign that maybe the Blueshirts are legitimate contenders to win it all, then Game 1 against the Senators was a reminder opportunities can be squandered by the thinnest of margins.
“If our intentions — and they are — are to win, then you’ve got to play better than we did [Thursday] night,” coach Alain Vigneault said after Friday’s practice. “Our guys, as a group, we need to be better.”
That starts with Game 2 on Saturday, when another loss would send them home down 2-0 in the best-of-seven series. A win would steady the ship and restore order, but a win is unlikely to come if the Rangers play the same way they did in Game 1.
They relied heavily on goalie Henrik Lundqvist to make a huge amount of acrobatic saves on great scoring chances — especially while taking four penalties — while the skaters slogged their way through Ottawa’s neutral-zone trap and struggled to sustain any consistent pressure on netminder Craig Anderson.
The Senators, however, still are acting as if they’re playing with house money. Coach Guy Boucher said his team played Game 1 with “fear,” and “the players didn’t want to get swept in four.” Mind you, Boucher has a Masters Degree from the University of Montreal in sports psychology, but his degrading message has created a certain mindset in the locker room.
Because when forward Alexandre Burrows was asked if his team played in “fear of being swept” by the mighty Blueshirts, he quickly responded.
“Oh, for sure,” Burrows said. “You look at them, they’ve been so good for a number of years, their window to win a Stanley Cup is right now. They have an opportunity right now to win the Cup. They’re not just coming in to play and see what happens. They really have the mindset that they have the team to do it, and I do believe that they have the team to do it, too.”
If Burrows believes the Rangers can win, rest assured so do those in their own locker room. Those players also understand the playoffs always have their good and bad games, and responding to the bad and building on the good is the only way to survive.
“I think it’s very important in the playoffs for everyone, not only the goalie, to reset,” Lundqvist said. “Of course after a win or a game, you can take some of the good things to make you feel good. But at the same time, you need to do everything all over again; the way you prepare and approach the next game. So to reset, it’s super important for everyone on the team.”
When Vigneault was asked if the expectations for his team have been reset at any time recently, he somewhat jokingly asked back: “Are you saying that in the first round I didn’t expect to win?”
Nobody would have suggested that, but it does seem that as the Stanley Cup gets closer, the prospect of the Rangers actually winning the thing has become real. Now that means they need to keep getting better, or it’s going to feel like another very good opportunity lost.
“Going into the season, we wanted to get into the playoffs to have this opportunity,” Vigneault said. “We were able to — with some pretty good play on our part — beat Montreal. You’re down to eight teams, and if your expectations are to get down to four, you’ve got to play better.”