It
has been 21 years since the Rangers
last won the Stanley Cup, so their onslaught of 2-1 scores in the current
postseason feels like an improvised Morse code reaching out to the past: 2-1,
2-1, 2-1, 2-1, 2-1, 2-1, 2-1, 2-1, 2-1.
To
review, as the Rangers battled past the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Washington
Capitals, eight games ended with a 2-1 verdict. Six of them went the Rangers’
way, including all four of the contests they won in overtime. Doubtless
believing they should not tamper with a winning formula, the Rangers beat the
Tampa Bay Lightning, 2-1 (of course), at Madison Square Garden on Saturday in
the first game of the Eastern Conference finals.
More
remarkably, the Rangers, dating to the final two games of the 2014 Stanley Cup
finals against the Los Angeles Kings, have played 15 consecutive playoff games
decided by one goal — an N.H.L. record.
It
is also a testament to how tough-minded the Rangers had to be in the first two
rounds this spring, when it seemed as if they were constantly tied with the
Penguins or the Capitals, or a goal ahead, or a goal behind.
“I
think it helps us when we’re in that position almost every night that you keep
your focus on the right things, and that’s what it comes down to,” Rangers
goalie Henrik Lundqvist said after Saturday’s victory. “We all understand that
every play matters throughout the game. We’re that close every game.”
It
is a tough path to travel, and it hardly resembles what happened in 1994, when
the Rangers won the Cup for the first time in 54 years.
In
that postseason, the Rangers started off with a roar, pummeling the rival
Islanders by matching 6-0 scores in the first two games of the first round
before easing up and merely winning by 5-1 and 5-2 to complete a four-game
sweep.
The
second round, against the Capitals, was not all that different. The Rangers won
the first three games of that series by 6-3, 5-2 and 3-0. It was only in Game
5, the series clincher, that the Rangers played a game decided by one goal. The
4-3 victory propelled them into the third round, against the Devils, and what
turned out to be perhaps the most intense playoff series the Rangers have ever played.
Three
of the seven games in that series were decided in overtime. And one of them did
end in a 2-1 score, the Game 7 in which the Rangers’ Stephane Matteau sneaked
the puck past the Devils’ Martin Brodeur and put the Rangers in the Stanley Cup
finals.
That
series, against the Vancouver Canucks, also went seven games, but only two were
decided by one goal, including Game 7, when the Rangers prevailed, 3-2.
In
their Cup run that season, the Rangers played 23 games, with six decided by one
goal. The series against the Devils was like a death match, but still, that
postseason was not as relentlessly tight as this one has been.
Nor
were the 1997 playoffs, when the Rangers, with Mark Messier and Wayne Gretzky
engaging in a last hurrah, made it to the conference finals before losing to
the Philadelphia Flyers in five games. In that postseason, the Rangers played
15 games, and seven of them were decided by one goal. One of those one-goal
games ended in a 2-1 score, with Adam Graves, like Matteau, scoring a wraparound
goal against Brodeur in overtime in the conference semifinals to oust the
Devils.
It
took until 2012 for the Rangers to again advance as far as the conference
finals, where they fell to the Devils in six games. Of the 20 games the Rangers
played in that postseason, 13 were decided by one goal. A lot, but not close to
what the Rangers are doing now.
As
for last year’s postseason, when the Rangers made the Cup finals, they played
25 games, 11 of which had a one-goal margin. More precisely, seven of the final
nine postseason games the Rangers played last year were decided by one goal,
perhaps setting a pattern.
“That
is the way the playoffs are,” Dominic Moore said on Saturday. “Just the margins
are small, and they’re not for the faint of heart these games, for sure.”
A
lot of the Rangers from last season’s squad are still with the team and have no
doubt become used to these one-goal games — even if their fans are about to
collapse.
Sumber:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/sports/hockey/by-now-weary-rangers-fans-know-the-score-its-probably-2-1.html?ref=sports
