Six-plus months after the fact, the Rangers’ second-round, six-game playoff defeat to Ottawa that ultimately broke up that old gang on Broadway remains difficult to fathom.
If it wasn’t quite the 1960 World Series, in which the Yankees outscored the Pirates 55-27 yet lost in seven games, the series was one-sided enough through the first five games in which the Blueshirts led for 179:52 and trailed for all of 13:10 but still were down 3-2 in the series they’d lose with a miserable effort in a Game 6 defeat at the Garden.
The playoff ouster that followed a rousing six-game opening round victory over Montreal presaged the departures of Bluebloods Dan Girardi and Derek Stepan and represents one of the more deflating exits from the postseason over the last 50 years.
Not that the Rangers were necessarily thinking about that when the Senators came to the Garden on Sunday. There were other things on the minds of the Blueshirts, who had lost two straight and had won only nine of their first 20 games (9-9-2) entering the contest.
Except, that is, on the mind of Henrik Lundqvist.
“Benny reminded me about it at the morning skate,” Lundqvist told The Post, alluding to the goalie whisperer, Benoit Allaire. “It kind of stunk a little bit, too, him telling me that these are the guys that knocked me and us out.
“It pissed me off a little bit and got me more emotional about it. But I knew what he was doing. It was an important game for us.”
Allaire knew what he was doing and so did Lundqvist throughout a sharp, spotless 20-save, 3-0 shutout victory that restored some balance to the equation in eliminating the specter of another long fallow stretch with the season passing the quarter mark.
“As much as it feels good to beat them because of what happened in the spring, the priority is for us to get our game where it needs to be,” the King said after recording his second shutout of the year and 63rd of his career. “I think we’re right there, pretty close to where we want to be with how we’re playing.”
For 40 minutes, this was a game out of the late 1990s or early 2000s, a dual trap-a-thon to be framed and hung in Jacques Lemaire’s hockey museum. Both teams clogged the neutral zone, Ottawa using the dreaded 1-3-1 and the Rangers equally conservative in sending one man in most of the time before falling back.
Engaging hockey it was not, even if it proved a winning formula for the home team that has had issues scoring at even strength all season.
“You need to be on the same page to be effective playing that way,” said Ryan McDonagh, who delivered a standout 25:01. “We watched some clips from last year’s playoffs that showed how they were able to capitalize when we weren’t patient or disciplined. It got our attention.”
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Henrik Lundqvist comes up big to halt Rangers losing streak
This was ugly, and gritty, and at times, downright nasty….
Even through their six-game winning streak that ended in Chicago on Wednesday, the Rangers had been outscored five-on-five. But they took a 2-0 lead in this one early in the third period off a pair of five-on-five goals recorded by Kevin Hayes and Michael Grabner. And they then protected that lead with a superlative kill of a debatable but not outrageous five-minute major assessed to Brendan Smith for interference at 7:32 of the third. The Blueshirts not only were unscored upon, they yielded just one shot while blocking seven attempts through the penalty kill that was uninterrupted by a whistle.
Lundqvist was never under siege, but he did face down a handful of severe tests, including the two-on-one Mike Hoffman putt from the left porch late in the first period on which the goaltender went into a two-pad slide.
“Old school,” said Lundqvist, who was also tested on a Mark Stone deflection and a Derick Brassard put-back late in the second period. “When you get the kind of support like I did, clearing in front and getting to rebounds, it’s easy to play in goal. You just try to be solid.”
Lundqvist has not only elevated his game over the last couple of weeks — .926 save percentage and 2.32 GAA over the last eight games — he has changed it. He has adapted it to a game that he says “has a lot more one-on-ones with the goalie against the shooter.
“There are more of those chances because there’s no slashing. I had to adjust. I’m being more aggressive in the way I play. I’m challenging more.”
And responding to challenges presented by his goalie coach, who does indeed have a pretty good idea of what he is doing.