With the benefit of hindsight, 7 things that went wrong for the Rangers
By Steve Paulus
Why were the New York Rangers swept in three games by the Carolina Hurricanes?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. We all engage in it and after an embarrassing playoff performance, the New York Rangers are an easy target. Here are some of the things that went wrong, but could have been avoided. In doing this we fully acknowledge that this is pure second guessing, an easy task with the benefit of hindsight.
#1 Goaltending
When Igor Shesterkin pulled his groin against the New York Islanders, the assumption was that it would be Henrik Lundqvist in net against the Carolina Hurricanes. We were seduced by a fabulous career record against Carolina and three regular season wins. What we failed to recognize was that Lundqvist literally had to stand on his head to win those games as the Rangers allowed 132 shots on goal in three games. To expect him to replicate that performance in the playoffs was unreasonable, especially after the last half of the regular season.
The simple fact is that based on regular season performance and what happened down the stretch, Alexandar Georgiev probably should have gotten the nod in goal. That decision would have been the most controversial of David Quinn’s coaching career, but for the most important games of the year, the coach didn’t go with the netminder who had won the starting job, he went with the veteran who had lost the starting job.
David Quinn maintained throughout training camp that he was considering all three netminders, but only he knows how much consideration was given to Georgiev. With Shesterkin the clear number one, it meant that Lundqvist would be the back up and that’s how they trained.
The fact is that when Shesterkin went down, it was crippling blow to the Rangers, but their response was the wrong one. Starting Lundqvist was the obvious sentimental choice, but it shouldn’t have been. Lundqvist didn’t play badly, but he didn’t steal any games and in this series, he needed to. He was outplayed by Petr Mrazek.