This was never going to be a throw-away year. Those don’t exist for the Rangers, not while Henrik Lundqvist remains in nets.
But whether it was explicitly described or just understood, this was tabbed as a year of transition for the perennial postseason contender. This was far more than just another retool on the fly when Dan Girardi and Derek Stepan were sent away — and still, no one quite expected it to be as bad as the 1-5-2 getaway, just as ugly as it sounds.
The heat rose around the front office, even if the temperature was likely never as high inside its own building as it was perceived to be looking in. Which is not to say that a pressure valve wasn’t released after this tidy little three-game winning streak, which included the Rangers most impressive, full-game performance of the season, a 2-1 overtime victory over the league-leading Lightning on Thursday night in Tampa.
It’s now three wins in a row for these Blueshirts, a run of 5-2-0 over their past seven to make them 6-7-2 overall as John Tortorella and the Blue Jackets roll onto Broadway for Monday night’s contest.
Suddenly, general manager Jeff Gorton and coach Alain Vigneault have some breathing room. Suddenly, they can go back to finding a balance between development and doing whatever it was going to take to win that night — seven defensemen, two straight starts for the backup goalie, sending their top center prospect Filip Chytil to the minors.
Suddenly, Lundqvist’s game is starting to come into form. Suddenly, he’s just Henrik Lundqvist again, not 35-year-old Henrik Lundqvist.
For all the King’s off-ice persona embodies, Lundqvist’s personality on the ice is far from graceful. He has always been a grinder, a fighter, clawing his way to make the saves that so few other goalies have the will and wherewithal to make. He recently said his game is “all about decisions,” and that makes perfect sense.
When Lundqvist’s game is a bit askew, as it was to start this season, it’s not subtle. He flails and slides and spins, obvious signs of trying to do too much. When he’s on, as he was in Florida, he makes it look simple. The acrobatics are reserved only for the times when they are the last option. And that’s because when he has more faith in the structure in front of him, he has always raised his own level of play.
“It makes a big difference,” Lundqvist said after Saturday night’s 5-4 overtime win against the Panthers in Sunrise, Fla. “I feel like these last two games, more structure, it’s easier to read situations when we’re in the right place. So it definitely helps.”
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Lundqvist also knows that eyes will always turn to him in times good and bad. The fourth goal he allowed to the Panthers that tied the game 4-4 was as close to unstoppable as a shot can be, a snipe off the crossbar from the stick of Vincent Trocheck with 1:56 left in regulation. He was asked about it after and was able to laugh at the question because his team still ended up winning.
“That’s a goalie’s world,” he said. “I knew I was going to get that question.”
This is still a team built from the net out, and with better defensive play from both the revamped back end and the forwards in their own zone, the Rangers again have stability. Vigneault no longer has to coach like he’s down 3-1 in a playoff series, and Gorton no longer has to approach any possible upcoming deals as if his back is against a wall.
Listen, the odds of the Rangers winning the Stanley Cup this year are minimal. No one in the front office has to come out and say that for it to be understood. But an environment of perpetual losing and recurring mistakes is no place for a player like Chytil or Tony DeAngelo to mature. That, essentially, is what made it plausible for Vigneault to be on the hot seat.
But now with their base back under them, with Lundqvist regaining confidence, with some semblance of defensive structure, the Rangers can get back to work. The season has not been thrown away, but imagine how much smoother this transition would have gone if they hadn’t all reported a month late?