MONTREAL — If you think the Canadiens were attacking Henrik Lundqvist with reckless abandon in the first five games of this series, what do you think is going to happen with their season on the line?
So the alert is out for Lundqvist when his Rangers take the Garden ice with a chance to eliminate the Habs and advance to the second round with a Game 6 victory Saturday night.
“There is a few shifts where they’re sitting on him and falling on him purposely, all that kind of stuff,” defenseman Marc Staal said Friday morning with his team up 3-2 in the best-of-seven contest and preparing to use the day just for travel before Saturday’s crucial contest.
“It’s a team that, when Hank is playing the way he is, they’re going to try to do things to try to get him off his game and try to create some offense. It’s something that we’re going to try to do our best to clear the way for him and if they do cross the line, hopefully we can get a man-advantage out of it.”
Not that the Rangers’ 0-for-14 man-advantage has been the best way to exact revenge, but Staal’s point is valid.
As has been the case over the past half-decade, the Rangers are not getting drawn into a physical quagmire. When they have played their best in this series, they have been the fast, high-tempo, intelligent team that tries to box out in front of Lundqvist rather than square up and box the opponent.
There have been a few exceptions — notably Brendan Smith’s fight with Andrew Shaw on Thursday night that was a rare show of pugilistic aggression — but not a change in game plan.
“It’s a message, but I’m not out there just trying to send a message,” said Smith, whose hard-edged game has elevated drastically in the postseason, much to the delight of general manager Jeff Gorton, who traded second- and third-round picks for him at the deadline. “I think the thing is we’re trying to take care of Hanky. He’s playing really well, so they’re trying to get their bumps in and we have to try to protect him. I think they kind of cross the line a little bit there, and those things happen.”
Smith might be new to the Rangers, but he’s not new to postseason tactics, when referees so brazenly swallow their whistles and once again it’s free rein on crashing goalies. (Of course, if Chris Kreider went anywhere near Carey Price, the league office might have him tarred and feathered and put on display on Saint Catherine Street.)
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There is still a theoretical line players cannot cross, even in the playoffs, and it was a good sign that Smith was told by a referee in Game 5, “You’re on the line right now.”
“And I respect that because I know where I’m at,” Smith said. “Sometimes I find the calls are kind of inconsistent, so if the refs could talk to us, that’s pretty good. But there’s guys on their team — [Brendan] Gallagher, Shaw — they’re always on that line and you have to make sure you don’t cross it because you can’t give up power plays. That’s when you get hurt.”
Lundqvist has outplayed Price this series, which has come by necessity. The Rangers have given up far more high-grade scoring chances, and Lundqvist has kept them in games during the deep lulls in their play. That’s what he did in the first 37 minutes of Game 5, when it seemed as if they were going to get blown out of the Bell Centre and sent back to New York licking their wounds and contemplating the end of their season.
But Lundqvist held strong and allowed the Rangers to find their legs. They turned the game around in dramatic fashion, just as they turned around this series after falling behind 2-1 following an awful Game 3 performance at the Garden.
But it only gets harder as the playoffs go along, and the Rangers know their opponent is going to be coming hard at them and their goalie with nothing to lose.
“The opportunity is for us to close the series out at home,” Staal said. “Our effort and our [competitiveness] and desperation will be there.”