New York Rangers Season Saved By Lundqvist, Ice Fort

The New York Rangers’ season continues with a two to one win at Madison Square Garden in-game four. Henrik Lundqvist was awesome as usual and the New York Rangers season was saved by an ice fort on the goal line. To some fans, this may just sound a lot like the series against Boston Bruins from a year ago when they won one game in overtime. Only to lose game five in Boston. This years team has more resolve than they did with John Tortarella as the coach. Current bench boss Alain Vigneault, has a way of pushing the right buttons and the players have a solid leadership group as a bridge to the coaching staff. They can win game five and then the pressure moves to Los Angeles to win a game at the garden or face a game seven. One game at a time though, there’s a delicate physique right now after loosing three in a row in the Stanley Cup Finals.

The New York Rangers coach pushed the right buttons

“Throughout the playoffs, it gets harder.As you move through the series, it gets harder. We have to keep elevating our game,” said forward Martin St. Louis.

Alain Vineault has done an awesome job all season long, now it’s time he begin to pull out his bag of tricks. He moved the lineups around and spread the minutes out differently in game four. Sure Brad Richards still got time on the power play, four of the New York Rangers six minutes on the man advantage. Rick Nash played about seven-seconds on the power play which boggles my mind with how well he’s been driving to the net of late. Coach did move Rick Nash to the second line though and Martin St. Louis to the top line with Derek Stepan and Chris Kreider. What I didn’t count on was him pulling a “Torts” and demoting Brad Richards to the fourth line. He moved Dominic Moore up to his spot to play second line center. Alain Vineault made all the right moves in gave four and got rewarded with a win in the Stanley Cup Finals

The New York Rangers had some puck luck in a game for first time in the series.

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The New York Rangers haven’t had much luck in this series. Things could be a lot different in this series if a bounce goes their way in game one or, if they get the right call by the refs in game two. The fact of the matter though is you have to make your own luck and the New York Rangers did that last night. Derek Stepan and the new kid the Rangers signed recently out of the Finnish Elite League named  “ice fort” saved the tying goal from crossing the goal line. Those two along with “the king” Henrik Lundqvist who was phenomenal in game four making forty saves on forty-one shots. Did the New York Rangers got lucky last night, yes absolutely! It was some pay back for the non-call in game two and all the bad bounces that have gone against the New York Rangers in these four games.

Courtesy of our friends at New York Rangers advanced stats 2013-2014 Playoffs | Extra Skater. We can see a ten game chart showing a statistic called PDO. It’s based on shooting percentage plus save percentage. (SH% + SV%=PDO.) An eight percent shooting percentage and a .920 save percentage is a PDO of 100%. That’s average for a good team. From game five against the Pittsburgh Penguins until the beginning of the Stanley Cup Finals. The New York Rangers were hovering around 103% and that means that team is having puck luck. During the Stanley Cup Finals, the New York Rangers were playing below 100% PDO. The good thing is that things like that always revert to the mean or the average. Luck is about to swing in the New York Rangers favor so they can go into Los Angeles and win game five.

Ed Mulholland-USA TODAY Sports