Just another must win game for the Rangers
By Steve Paulus
It’s business as usual for the New York Rangers as they prepare for their final meeting of the season with the Buffalo Sabres. As with every game the latter part of this campaign, it is a must-win.
How have they responded when they are in this situation? On March 25, the Rangers trounced the Flyers 8-3 and pulled to within three points of the Bruins. They played Philadelphia again and lost 2-1 on a Samuel Morin goal with under five minutes left in the game. That was a valuable point lost in a game they could have won.
In the next game they let the Capitals jump out to a 4-0 lead before storming back and falling short 5-4. On April 3, the Rangers blew a third period lead and lost to Buffalo in a shootout. That lost point may come back to really haunt them.
In their next series, they walloped Pittsburgh 8-4, but were then were thoroughly outplayed in a 5-2 loss the second game.
Most recently, coming off a four game sweep of the Devils, they were dismantled by the Islanders in their worse loss of the season, 6-1. They followed that with a dispirited 3-2 loss to the Flyers, a loss Coach David Quinn attributed to the fact that the team was demoralized by the Islanders loss.
One concern has to be that in the last three series that the Rangers have won the first game, they dropped the second. The question has to be whether the team has been unable to handle the adjustments made by the opposition or a lack of adjustments made by the Blueshirts.
For David Quinn, it’s neither. “As far as back-to-backs, the second game is always the hardest and our guys know that. I don’t want the schedule to dictate how we approach things, there are certainly some adjustments you can make from a tactical standpoint, but at the end of the day , out game is how we balance our offensive skill and our commitment to playing smart hockey.”
One thing is for certain, in the three openers against Philadelphia. Pittsburgh and the Islanders the Rangers were 6-12 on the power play. In the second games, all losses, they were 2-10 with the man advantage.
Other coaches have spoken about the new schedule and how it is much like a playoff, giving them the opportunity to alter match-ups and strategy. In other words, playoff-hardened coaches do let the schedule dictate how they approach things. While we can criticize the first power play unit for being inefficient, it is likely that teams have changed their penalty kill to counter the Rangers. Let’s see how the Sabres do tonight though if anyone would know how to handle the Rangers power play it should be Lindy Ruff.