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Henrik Lundqvist Needs To Be Aggressive In Game Seven (Video)

By Steven Carollo

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New York Rangers’ starting goaltender, Henrik Lundqvist, must be aggressive in Game 7 tonight of the Eastern Conference Finals vs. the Tampa Bay Lightning.

New York Rangers‘ starting goaltender, Henrik Lundqvist, has not been at his best in this season’s Eastern Conference Finals vs. the Tampa Bay Lightning.  While historically throughout his career, Lundqvist has not been that good of a regular season performer vs. the Lightning, you would expect come playoff time that whatever happened in the regular season would not matter anymore.  This, however, has not entirely been the case in this series.

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Time and time again throughout these Eastern Conference Finals, the Lightning’s offense has been able to get to Lundqvist and make him feel quite uncomfortable.  So much that he has even allowed a fair share of what some would call, “soft goals.”

Here is a look at two of them, both coming off of the stick of Lightning forward, Nikita Kucherov:

While the Kucherov goal in the 2nd video did not come back to bite Lundqvist and the Rangers, as the Rangers were able to win Game 6 by a 7-3 final score, the Kucherov goal in the 1st video was the Game 3 winner in overtime, a game in which Lundqvist allowed a total of 6 goals.

New York Rangers
New York Rangers /

New York Rangers

Usually if Lundqvist allowed 6 goals in a game, you would figure it was a regular season game or even an exhibition game but definitely not a playoff game.  And even after you saw and come to terms that Lundqvist allowed 6 goals in a playoff game, you would figure that this was just some rare freak occurrence.  However, just one game prior, in Game 2, Lundqvist surrendered 6 goals in that contest as well.

So the Lightning’s offense have frustrated Lundqvist so much in this series that they made him have his two worst playoff games in his career, in which he gave up a total of 12 goals in a two game span.

Beginning in Game 4 though, Lundqvist started being more aggressive, playing near the top of his crease instead of deep in his net, allowing him to cut down on angles, making more saves, and giving up less goals.

Lundqvist must stick to this aggressive strategy in Game 7 tonight at Madison Square Garden, if the Rangers want to advance to the Stanley Cup Final for the 2nd straight season.  If he does not, then the Rangers could very well be playing in their last game of the season tonight, and once again be going home empty handed, failing to accomplish their mission.

Next: New York Rangers' Defense Must Limit Mistakes In Game Seven (Video)

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