SAN JOSE, Calif. — And so they are going dancing for the seventh straight season and the 11th time in the 12 years of the hard-cap era, and that is something of which the Rangers can be proud.
But even as the Blueshirts earned — got? — the one point they needed to clinch the berth by virtue of their 5-4 overtime defeat on Tuesday to the Sharks, their game was largely the mess it has been for more than the last month in which they have won six (6-8-2) of their last 16 beginning Feb. 26.
“I’m a big believer in playing the right way and for two periods we didn’t play the right way. We kind of got dominated,” Derek Stepan said after the match in which the Blueshirts trailed 3-1 late in the second before rallying for a 4-3 lead only to lose it late in the third before dropping it altogether in overtime. “But the thing I love about this group is that after we had a conversation in here we went out and played a really strong third period.
“It’s hard right now to think about clinching the playoffs, but I feel very fortunate to have made it for all my seven years in the league.”
The Rangers’ game was riddled with errors in the defensive and neutral zones just as it was in Sunday’s 6-3 defeat in Anaheim and in fact was for much of Saturday’s 3-0 victory in Los Angeles. They were pounded much of the night.
Nick Holden, whose game has deteriorated the last two months, committed the turnover that directly led to Chris Tierney’s tying goal in front at 17:45 of the third with partner Marc Staal barely in the picture. Jimmy Vesey had such a troubling game that he never got onto the ice after the second intermission. The club’s structure was non-existent.
“The first 39 minutes, we didn’t show up,” said coach Alain Vigneault. “We didn’t make a play, compete or execute.”
And yet, they still got the point they required by scoring three times within a span of 5:07, with J.T. Miller getting his second of the night for the 4-3 lead on a 4-on-3 man advantage at 4:44 of the third after Stepan scored on the power play at 19:37 of the second and Jesper Fast had gotten one on a deflection at 1:24 of the third.
Miller was perhaps the Rangers’ best player after having been demoted to the fourth line to start the game following a particularly difficult stretch of game culminating with an extremely sub-par one on Sunday against the Ducks. He was back on the top-six by the start of the third period.
“I wasn’t surprised at all,” Miller said of the demotion. “I knew I had to be better and work harder and get the bad habits out of my game. You can’t be upset by it.
“I have to be more consistent, turn the page and play the right way.”
If the Rangers collectively seemed to have mixed feelings about clinching a spot in this manner, it was not difficult to read Henrik Lundqvist’s emotions. The goaltender was downcast after having allowed five goals for the second consecutive game upon his return from his eight-game hiatus caused by his hip injury.
It was as if the King and his court had just been eliminated from contention rather than getting the invite to the party for which the Blueshirts need one more point to ensure a first-round crossover against Montreal or Ottawa.
“I’m just extremely disappointed right now,” said Lundqvist, ultimately beaten by Brent Burns’ power play one-timer at 3:10 of OT. “I’m glad we’re in … uh … but you want to get the job done, you want to get the win but [instead] we found a way to lose in the end.
“The second [period] wasn’t great but we played really well in the third and I couldn’t come up with the extra saves at the end. It really bothers me.”
Lundqvist said he felt “exhausted” from being “all over the place.”
He wasn’t the only one. The Rangers were incoherent in their own zone even as they somehow managed to avoid suffering the same type of humiliation they had here in a 9-2 defeat in October of 2013 in Vigneault’s third game behind the New York bench and as they had here last March in a 4-1 defeat in which they were outshot 52-26.
“Looking back on the season, I haven’t been at my best coming out of breaks,” Lundqvist said. “But I’m not looking for any excuses. I need to be better. I need to be at the top of my game on Friday [at home against Pittsburgh].
“I need to find my structure.”
He’s not the only one.