OTTAWA — Consider it a terrific practice, and one in which Henrik Lundqvist shined.
In his final regular-season start, the Rangers’ most important player to their postseason hopes was their best player, as Lundqvist was the lone positive for a depleted roster that lost a 3-1 game to the Senators on Saturday afternoon at Canadian Tire Center.
It was an ugly affair in which the Blueshirts were resting seven of their regulars, but Lundqvist made 30 saves on some grade-A chances, boding well when the first-round playoff series with the Canadiens starts up in Montreal, likely on Wednesday.
“It would have been a better feeling if we had been winning a lot lately, and that’s not been the case,” said Lundqvist, who will watch backup Antti Raanta play the regular-season finale on Sunday night at the Garden against the Penguins.
“But as a goalie, you have to focus on the things you can control and give the team a chance to win games, keep it close at times,” Lundqvist said. “I feel pretty good. I’m going to work as hard as I can in the next couple days and really fine-tune everything, come to Montreal with a good feeling and try to get a good start in that series. I look forward to it.”
The Rangers (47-28-6) have been locked into the first wild-card for a while, and the main goal of the past week has been to get healthy and get their defensive structure in order. Well, the first part is going along fine, but the Senators (44-27-10) were able to take advantage of many sloppy plays with and without the puck while they secured second place in the Atlantic Division and home-ice advantage in the first round.
“It’s tough, there are a lot of guys out right now,” said veteran defenseman Dan Girardi. “We want to win a game, but if we don’t, we want to make sure we’re good structurally. Hopefully [Sunday] night — I’m not sure what the lineup is going to be — but get a few guys back in maybe and play a little better, for sure.”
The Blueshirts played without Ryan McDonagh, who missed his fourth straight game with a minor, undisclosed injury, but has been practicing and declared himself ready for the start of the playoffs. They also were without Rick Nash, Derek Stepan, Mats Zuccarello, Jesper Fast, Nick Holden and Marc Staal.
This is a team that is younger than it has been in years past, and the message over the next few days will be that come the playoffs, things are going to change — drastically.
“I think we have enough old guys in the room here, veteran guys, that we can let everyone know that it’s not going to be like the last two games here,” Girardi said. “We need to pick it up. There’s no little play. Hopefully we can have a good solid team effort [Sunday] then get on horse and get going.”
Well, all signs are pointing to Lundqvist being ready. Former teammate Derick Brassard scored at 9:24 of the second, and his goal was sandwiched with tallies from Mike Hoffman and Jean-Gabriel Pageau. But when Brassard had another great chance from in front in the third, he was denied on a sprawling right-pad save that was vintage Lundqvist. It sent the two buddies laughing as they skated to their respective benches for a television timeout.
“I don’t know if I wanted this type of game [with] the amount of scoring chances right in front to happen,” said Lundqvist, whose team was kept from being shut out by goalie Craig Anderson with a goal from Mika Zibanejad against his old team with 44.4 seconds remaining. “But I think that’s a good thing in this game, that I saw a lot of scoring chances.”
The next challenge for Lundqvist will be trying to match superlative Montreal net minder Carey Price, and he needs to be this good if the Rangers want to advance. It’s a challenge Lundqvist looks forward to.
“Last couple games, I’ve been feeling pretty good,” Lundqvist said. “Moving in the right direction. This was a challenging game, but maybe a good test as well for me to be in a good spot going into the playoffs.”