New York Rangers: Why tonight’s game versus Ottawa is a must win

The New York Rangers take on the Ottawa Senators tonight in their second to last home game. All indications are that Henrik Lundqvist will get the start and that’s why this is a game the Blueshirts must win.

Henrik Lundqvist needs one more win to reach the 450 mark.   The New York Rangers future Hall of Famer is sixth on the all-time list with 449 and has failed in his last five attempts to reach the milestone. You can see that it is eating at him in his post-game comments and this may be his last, best chance this season to get the win.

After tonight’s game, the Rangers play Columbus at Madison Square Garden on Friday and travel to Pittsburgh on Saturday for their season finale.  Both the Blue Jackets and Penguins are in a desperate fight for playoff seeding so those games should have playoff intensity.  Ottawa has the worst record in the league and is going nowhere.  Tonight’s the night.

The entire team owes Lundqvist their best effort tonight and they should play this game as if it is game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals. Ranger veterans like Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad need to set the example for their younger teammates.  The effort we see tonight will tell us a lot about the character of this Ranger team.

You have to know that David Quinn is well aware of the significance.  That’s one reason he held Pavel Buchnevich, one of the team’s hottest scorers, out of Monday’s match with the Devils.  After Monday’s game, Quinn said he will likely give Lundqvist two more starts in an effort to get to the 20-win mark.  Lundqvist is already the only goaltender in NHL history to reach 20 wins in his first 13 years in the league.  Two more wins will make it 14 years.

2019 has been cruel to the King.  He has started 22 games with a record of 6-13-3.  Before the New Year, he had lost only seven games in regulation in 26 starts and singlehandedly had kept the team in a number of games.

If anything, Quinn could be accused of overworking Lundqvist as he started 30 of the team’s first 39 games.  There’s no doubt that Lundqvist wanted the workload and he acknowledged that the lack of starts recently has been hard on him.

The New York Rangers have been blessed to have Henrik Lundqvist in net for 14 years.  His competitiveness and drive to win are legendary throughout the NHL.   This is the toughest stretch of his professional career and one wonders if his pledge to stick it out is still valid.  This was what he said in training camp:

"“People talk about rebuild and nobody knows how long of a project that is.  There’s no other place I want to be. I feel great, excited to be back here and just see how far we can take this forward this year.” –  Henrik Lundqvist,   September 2018"

Compare that optimism to the Lundqvist we saw after the dispiriting loss to the Devils:

So, tonight’s the night for the Rangers to play their hearts out to show respect for one of the greatest players to ever don the Rangers’ jersey.   Tonight, the lottery standings don’t matter, the team just needs to win. .