No Points for Almost, Rangers Headed to L.A. for Game 5

Yep. The Los Angeles Kings were this close to hoisting the Stanley Cup last night at MSG.

Twice...
To say that Game 4 was uncomfortably close would be an understatement. The Kings brought their A game but the Blueshirts were still able to steal one thanks to the unreal play of Henrik Lundqvist in yet another elimination game (11-2 in those since 2012), and some very friendly bounces around the net (see above).

But I don't want to let 2 close calls at the goal line overshadow the fact that the Rangers actually played a pretty solid must-win game at home in the Stanley Cup Final. They came out flying, scoring an early goal that might as well have been on the power play (2 seconds after), and hitting everything with a pulse. They showed the Kings that they were not gonna go down easy. Especially not at home.

Let's not forget that the man in charge deserves a HUGE assist on this win. AV did everything right in this situation. He had this team ready to play mentally, and he made the decisions on the ice that may have been the reason the boys are boarding a plane for Los Angeles today. Dan Carcillo was eligible to play last night after his 6 game suspension for assaulting an official, but Vigneault decided to stay with Dorsett, who has been playing the best hockey I've seen him play since he's been in New York. No brainer. More risky was the decision to start Brad Richards on the 4th line. Obviously you never know how a demotion will effect a player. Especially a superstar like Richards. But what I saw was a more motivated Brad Richards who seemed to understand the situation and accept the decision for the betterment of the team. Another great call by the first year coach who has this team playing at 150% of its potential right now.

Obviously the Rangers still have some work to do here if they want to have any chance at hoisting the cup in LA 6 days from now, but it had to start somewhere. For the optimists out there, you can look to the fact that the Kings played possibly their best hockey last night, and the team from New York managed to hang on, despite not being as sharp late as we've seen them. That's the way they have to look at things going forward. Take some confidence out of this game, but that's all. Friday night is another battle. This time in LA, where the home crowd will know what's in the building.




PS: It's all about Hank.

via NHL

Do or Die Time, Here We Go

Well the New York Rangers have really stepped in some shit this time... I'll be honest, like most people, I didn't really give this team a chance in this series. Obviously anything's possible in the playoffs and you never know how momentum will swing. And after the first 2 games you'd be an idiot to think the series couldn't have easily been 2-0 the other way. But let's not kid ourselves here. The Rangers played 1 starting goalie through 3 playoff series to get to the cup, and that was Marc Andre Fleury, who happens to be notorious for his horrendous play in the post season, while LA was busy sending home the 3 best teams in the NHL. I'm not trying to say that what this team did was not impressive, because if you told me in October, when Tomas Hertl was going thin mints between his legs on Marty Biron in a 9-2 disaster, that the New York Rangers would play for the Stanley Cup, I would have laughed in your face. But let's be real here.

Now this thing isn't over until the horn sounds at the end of the Kings' 4th win, but anyone with a brain knows it would take a miracle at this point. Maybe they'll find that miracle like they did against Pittsburgh and maybe they won't. Either way, even if the Rangers lose game 4 tonight, in front of their fans, in their building, you have to be happy with this season as a whole. A new coach came in and brought a new system with him, and he took this team further than anyone thought they could go. It's just a damn shame that game 3 went the way it did. Because this series was far closer than anyone will remember in years to come. Sure this might go down as the first sweep in 16 years. Or Kings in 5 after the rangers manage to save one at home. But at the end of the day, the New York Rangers battled the Los Angeles Kings as hard as they could for 2 games in their building, and if not for a couple bounces, this could be a very different series.

Whatever happens tonight will happen, and if they can manage to dig deep and make something out of this mess, that'd be great. But the outcome of game 4 has no effect on what the New York Rangers accomplished this year.