Rangers vs Lightning season series an excellent playoff preview

The New York Rangers’ Eastern Conference Finals series starts tonight against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the same foe they faced the last time they made it this far in the playoffs.  In hockey, that’s ancient history so let’s look at the games between the two teams this season.

The Rangers won all three games against Tampa with two games on the road and one at Madison Square Garden.  They outscored them 9-4 in the three games with Igor Shesterkin in net for all three games for New York. Brian Elliott was in goal for one game for Tampa and Andrei Vasilevskiy was in net for the last two.

#1 December 31: 4-3 Shootout win in Tampa

The Rangers made New Year’s Eve a festive occasion with a 4-3 win by shootout in Tampa.  This one has to be credited to puck luck as the Blueshirts were the beneficiaries of two awful plays by goalie Brian Elliott who gave the puck away twice, leading to Ranger goals.

The first time came with the Rangers trailing 1-0 on a Steven Stamkos power play goal in the first period.  The Tampa goal came six seconds into the man advantage off a lost faceoff.

In the second period, Elliott was pressured behind the goal by Julien Gauthier and handed the puck to Alexis Lafreniere who scored into an empty net.

Nine minutes later Elliott left the crease to play the puck while on the power play, but instead passed to Greg McKegg who passed to Barclay Goodrow for the shorthanded goal.

Tampa tied the game on a Ross Colton slapshot that Shesterkin probably would have wanted another chance at.

The Rangers took a third period lead on Barclay Goodrow’s second goal of the game, a deflection of a K’Andre Miller shot.  With just over six minutes left, they couldn’t hold the lead as Tampa’s Corey Perry scored with the goalie pulled.

Overtime was scoreless and in the shootout, Mika Zibanejad scored the only goal for the win.

So, it was a clutch road win over a top team, but it was a lucky one.  The Rangers were gifted two goals and they blew a third period lead with less than a minute left.  They were outshot 28-23 and were 0-4 on the power play while Tampa was 1-4 while giving up a shorthanded goal.

Barclay Goodrow had received his Stanley Cup ring before the game and made his return a notable one, named first star for scoring two goals.

#2 January 2: 4-0 statement win at Madison Square Garden

As lucky as they were to win two days earlier, the Rangers were outstanding in this game.  Going into the game, it was announced that Artemi Panarin was in the COVID protocol while Andrei Vasilevskiy and Anthony Cirelli came off the list for Tampa.

The Rangers did it with a lineup that included Nils Lundkvist and Zac Jones as the third defense pair. Tim Gettinger also made his season debut and Libor Hajek was in for Ryan Lindgren. The average age of the Rangers’ defense was 23.5 years compared to 29 for Tampa.

How did they win?  Igor Shesterkin was outstanding in his first face-to-face meeting with Vasilevskiy, stopping 38 shots for his second shutout of the season.

Mika Zibanejad scored three goals for his only hat trick of the season, with two goals on the power play.

The Rangers played a perfect game, especially in the third period when they played shutdown defense, allowing only nine harmless shots.

This was another nightmare for the analytics crowd as the Rangers were a Corsi disaster, allowing 73 shot attempts while they had only 35.  But they also won 61% of their faceoffs, went 2-3 on the power play, killed two penalties and got excellent goaltending.

It was a big sweep for the Rangers and got the new year started off well.

#3 March 19:  Late goal in 2-1 win at Tampa

If we are looking for a playoffs preview, this one fits the bill.  It was an outstanding game and a duel between two brilliant goalies with Igor Shesterkin the number one star with 28 saves while Andrei Vasilevskiy was the number two star, stopping 25 shots.  The Rangers won the game on a Mika Zibanejad power play goal with only 16 seconds left.

The two teams had exchanged early goals with Brayden Point scoring on the power play late in the  first period and Jacob Trouba answering back midway through the second.

The Point goal was controversial as the Rangers felt that there was late whistle after Shesterkin had frozen the puck only to have it come free when there was no stoppage.

The Lightning won the faceoff battle in this game, winning 56%.  They also allowed six Ranger power plays, something that finally caught up to them on the winning goal.

Ryan Reaves didn’t fight much this season, but he had his third bout of the season when he took on Pat Maroon.

Looking at the fight, it appears that Maroon wanted no part of Reaves, hardly attempting to throw a punch.

Still, the highlight of the game was the goaltending matchup, a duel won by Igor Shesterkin.

Worth noting was the fact that there were so many Ranger fans in the Amalie Arena, you could distinctly hear an “Igor, Igor” chant going up when he made a big save.

Hmm….

That last win was the penultimate game before the trade deadline, meaning that the Lightning have not seen the Rangers featuring Andrew Copp, Tyler Motte or Justin Braun though Frank Vatrano was playing in his second game since being acquired from Florida.

The series serves as a good preview of this playoff series.  One game won on a few lucky break.  Another a shutdown defensive game with a brilliant display by Mika Zibanejad.  A third was a one-goal game decided by special teams.

The two teams combined for a total of 13 goals in three games, fewer goals than were scored in the first game of the Oilers-Avalanche series last night. While observers will point out that Tampa was dealing with some COVID issues, so were the Rangers and one thing is clear, the post-trade deadline Blueshirts are a very different (and better) team than the one that swept the Lightning.

It’s a given that regular season games are not a harbinger of things to come in the playoffs, just ask the Carolina Hurricanes.  But in looking at the three wins by New York over Tampa, there are some lessons to be learned and some real reasons to be optimistic about the Rangers’ chances.

Stay tuned, it’s going to be a wild ride.