It was Henrik Lundqvist who talked about “hockey luck” not going his or his team’s way in the aftermath of a 5-4 overtime defeat Tuesday to the Penguins in which Sidney Crosby tied the score with less than a minute remaining in regulation by banking one in off the goaltender from well behind the net.
But luck was the least of the factors that contributed to the goal that presaged defeat, which came soon enough when Evgeni Malkin feasted on a Ryan McDonagh blunder less than a minute into OT to send the Blueshirts into a Thursday match at the Garden against the Islanders with a 1-5-1 record.
The Rangers were neither good enough nor opportunistic enough to find a way to cement the contest in which they rallied from an early 2-0 deficit to lead 3-2 and then 4-3. They played well enough for stretches of that game, but killer mistakes undermined them just as they have in six of their first seven matches.
Which comes first, a loss of confidence or the inability to consistently execute fundamental plays? Which comes first, breakdowns under stress or the inability to finish a succession of glorious opportunities?
Through Wednesday, the Rangers had the NHL’s sixth-worst even-strength shooting pct. (5.13) and the 19th-ranked even-strength save pct. (.914). Last year, the Blueshirts were fourth-best in even-strength shooting pct. (8.81) and were 18th in save pct. (.923). In 2015-16, the club led in both even-strength shooting pct. (9.01) and save pct. (.934). In 2014-15, the Rangers were third in even-strength shooting pct. (8.84) and fourth in save pct. (.931).
Rick Nash has been playing some of the most inspired hockey of his six-year run on Broadway, consistently physical and mean-edged — Big 61 was a couple of centimeters away from a multi-game suspension when his neutral zone elbow on Saturday caught Nico Hischier in the chest rather than the teen’s head — while taking the puck to the net on every conceivable opportunity.
But despite generating 29 shots, fifth in the NHL among forwards, Nash had scored only one goal. His small-sample shooting pct., therefore, was a smaller-sized 3.4. This from a player with a career number of 12.2 pct. So is there an expectation that Nash will naturally approach his lifetime performance? Or does this indicate that Nash’s hands and ability to finish are on the decline?
Is it more troubling that Nash has one goal on 29 shots (1-for-21 playing five-on-five) or that Mats Zuccarello, also with one goal, had generated only eight shots on net through the first seven games? The latter, actually, because Zuccarello has not been nearly as involved in the hand-to-hand portion of the game as customary.
The day before the opener, I’d asked Zuccarello if he felt better than he had last year when he’d played around a dozen games for Team Norway in the Olympics Qualifying tournament and Team Europe in the World Cup prior to reporting for the final week of Rangers’ camp. Actually, it was just the opposite.
“I liked it last year,” he said on Oct. 4. “You play a lot of games and you’re into it right away. Maybe there were a few too many — and I missed camp and being around the guys — but I liked it that way.”
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The Rangers and Zuccarello don’t have too much longer or else they will be out of this right away. It is obviously impossible to be mathematically out of things by the third week of October (or even the fourth), but the teams that recover from such dramatically inauspicious starts are exceptions to the rule.
Thursday marked the renewal of the Battle of New York that the Rangers have owned in the greater sense throughout the salary cap era, the Blueshirts finishing ahead of their neighbor for 12 straight seasons. In fact, the Rangers have finished ahead of the Islanders in 23 of the last 28 seasons starting with 1988-89. Before that, the Islanders had been on top 13 consecutive years after the Rangers led in each of the Islanders’ first three seasons beginning in 1972-73.
But the heightened importance of this Game 8 for the Rangers had nothing to do with the rivalry and nothing to do with the opponent. Any and every team is a rival right now for a Blueshirts team that is desperately attempting to establish its footing, foundation and identity.
And could use some luck. First, though, they have to make it.