It was late Monday morning at Madison Square Garden. Game 6 wouldn’t begin for roughly 32 hours. Already, the chants had started:
“Let’s go Rangers.”
[Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap]
“Let’s go Rangers.”
[Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap]
A group of students taking a tour of the building had stumbled onto the Senators’ practice and quickly reminded them just how much had changed since their thrilling win in Ottawa on Saturday.
The Senators were back in New York and back on the ice where they had been dominated by the Rangers in Games 3 and 4 of their second-round series, losing by a total of six goals.
So, even though the Senators enter Tuesday’s match just one win from the Eastern Conference finals, they feel a galaxy away from claiming the series.
“We know what’s coming — a crazy crowd, [the Rangers] surging, them at their best, with all the urgency in the world, which makes them a really, really tough team to beat,” Senators coach Guy Boucher said. “There’s nothing that carries over from one game to another. There’s no momentum from one game to another. … You start back to zero every time. We have to have that mentality or else we’re still stuck at the game we won, and we’re not there anymore.”
Most of the Senators can’t pinpoint why the team has played with so much more passion and discipline at home, but former Ranger Derick Brassard believes he knows what went wrong on Broadway last week.
“We were way too tight last time,” Brassard said. “We didn’t really act the right way. We have to be loose, having fun, not thinking about a hundred things. … For whatever reason, with a 2-0 lead in this series, maybe our mentality was a little different. That was probably it. We were up in the series, you kind of feel good about yourself, but the other team’s desperate.
“It’s the best time of the year. We shouldn’t be nervous or anything. We should be loose. We have nothing to lose anymore. … We’re coming here confident. At one point in the series, we have to steal a game on the road, and we plan on doing it [Tuesday].”
The Senators don’t have to steal a game on the road. Even with a loss, Ottawa could win the series at home in Game 7.
But the Senators aren’t thinking of that as an option. They have enough on their minds already.
“It’s going to be a different game than any other game this series,” captain Erik Karlsson said. “It’s probably going to be the toughest one so far. … To get that one more win that we want, it’s probably going take a little more than what we’ve had in the past and what we’ve had to do.
“We’re far from where we want to be.”