Game Thread 4/29/17 Game 2 New York Rangers vs Ottawa Senators

I just don't think our defensemen are tough enough to close out games consistently enough. Maybe this will be the wake up call they need. Unfortunately it always takes one of these dumb losses in every series.

 

Big Mac is available.

 

To me it is one thing to lose game 2 at Montreal when you are already up 1-0 in the series, and it was a 1 goal lead late. It is a whole other thing to blow multiple 2 goals leads, including one with 3 and change left, in a series you are trailing 1-0.

Same thing with the egg we laid in game 3 against Montreal. Obviously it was a terrible L, but we were still only down 2-1, that L made game 4 a must win. Now we are down 2 games. 78% of the time when a team goes up 2-0 they win the series. Add in the way we lost, and the talk in the locker room, and it is difficult to see a big turn around. I really don't see the comparison to the Montreal series games 2 and 3.

The one saving grace we have is I still think we are better than Ottawa, but at this point not sure it matters with how we are playing through 2 games.

 

Lundqvist now 3-10 in playoff OT games. That's crazy.

These losses are totally demoralizing as fans I'm sure it's no different in locker room.

 

You know what kind of sucks...I almost feel like the end of an era. We have had a lot of great hockey the past 5 years. Multiple long runs. Hank been our rock for over a decade. We have been very lucky as hockey fans. But we simply couldn't get over that hump. Now we are on the back side of the run.

I don't want to write everything off and say we are done for sure, you always hope, but it kind of feels like today was the ending of a good stretch for NYR fans.

I am sure Hank will still be good for another year or two, so not too worried about him, but he won't be a 60 game top level stud anymore. He will be a good human goalie now.

Gorton has to try and make bigger moves this summer. Time to break up this core more. He really couldn't do it last summer with no 1st rounder, two years left for Nash, too much of a penalty to buyout Girardi. He absolutely has to do it this summer. Everyone outside of McDonagh and Skjei should be available. Girardi has to be bought out. Nash could get moved with only 1 year left (although they may just let his last season play out here). Stepan should get dealt I think. Shatty should be signed to form a very formidable trio with McDonagh and Skjei. You look at Miller and Hayes and think what do you do with them. We will lose a solid player in the expansion draft. Everything has to be on the table I think.

That's what makes today even tougher, kind of feel like it is now truly the end of an era for us, and to a lesser extent Hank. And it is a double kick that our division is so deep, and now we have two young teams getting the 1 and 2 picks in the draft.

Sad day in some ways.

 

12 - ECF
13 - 2nd round
14 - SCF
15 - ECF
16 - 1st round
17 - 2nd round???

Pretty darn good run over the past 6 post-seasons (9 series wins). We should feel lucky we have had that type of stretch, even though we failed to win the Cup. It is time to break up the core a lot more this summer if we fall to Ottawa, but great run, especially considering what happened before 2012.

We do have youth upfront, and hopefully the 3 on D I mentioned above (hopefully Shatty is here...best bet is if the Caps lose to the Pens), so we may still have some window left if Gorton can make the right changes this summer.

But I kind of feel empty and like today was some sort of sad closure.

 

Jeez Chuck let's save the eulogies for after the death. There's a game Tuesday and there's NO CHANCE the guys in the room see their season as already over. They won two in a row, we can win two in a row.

 

Not ready to throw in the towel quite yet cause ottawa just not that good. I do think we need to win both at home and then were back in it. Only a split and it probably ends in ottawa in 5. We'll see tuesday and thursday if theres any fight in them left.

 

Next 2 games are must win

 

Not sure who Chuck is, but as I said you watch and root and hope. You take it one game at a time and win game 3 and then go into game 4 with a chance to tie the series. Both games are must wins I believe. But that doesn't change the fact that we have played like a pile of crap for two games (against a team that I agree with you we are clearly better than). And we have played pretty crappy for a long time outside of the Montreal series.

No doubt we come home and regroup mentally, and hope we raise our game. As we have both mentioned 223, Ottawa is not a team we should be down 2-0 to. We are the better team. But the lazy mistake filled hockey we have seen for two games is simply not close to good enough.

Can we win 4 of the next 5...sure because Ottawa is not a great team at all. And we can all watch and root, but that doesn't stop us from also looking at this run we have had the past 6 postseasons and feeling nostalgic as it might be coming to a close with this main core.

 

Rangers were down 3-1 a couple years ago to teams better than this Ottawa team (Pitt and Wash) so we should see how these games at MSG play out but with the state of defense play of Holden Girardi and Staal combined with morons Miller Hayes Kreider and Stepan it's hard to stay positive. Losing a game scoring 5 goals when you had a 2 goal lead three fucking times is close to putting the nail in the coffin. I agree w RangerFan if that happens you make big changes and I'd consider Sutter too.

 

It ain't over until it's over, need to win game 3 and go from there. Plenty of blame to go around but ultimately the coach is in charge of the players so AV is as liable as any player. Calls have gone against the Rangers as long as I've been watching hockey but the lack of discipline today again falls on the coach, players taking stupid penalties need to miss a shift or two. Big game 3 ahead, time for the coach to get to work.

 

They absolutely were Disturbed. But you pointed out some big differences that I agree with.

Plus I am not sure Hank has played a game like today in the playoffs before. Sure he had games where he played poorly and was pulled, but a lot of that was terrible D. Today he let in 2 or 3 really bad goals. Goals 1 and 6 were not good. Not writing that to be critical of Hank because he has been our god for 10 + years, but today his play was what it was.

And then you add in Holden, Staal and the forwards who don't finish and play stupid hockey way too often.

That Staal/Holden pair is a mistake waiting to happen. The 3rd goal today was Staal with a ridiculously stupid needless icing that led to the face-off which led to the goal with Holden standing around. Same with the 4th goal.

And I will get on AV here as well. Why did Lindberg and Buch get benched and play 5 minutes each in a double OT game? And someone really needs to explain to me why Skjei and Smith played way less than Staal and Holden. That puzzles me as well.

This is the worst playoff L I could remember in this stretch. Not the worst we have played per se, but the worst way we have lost I think, in a game that was pretty darn huge given the %'s when teams fall down 2-0.

There is no giving up though. They'll play the games. We'll hope and root like heck we wake up. We either will play a strong game and get back into the series Tuesday night, or we'll be totally crushed by this L and get beaten down and then the season would essentially be over. I hope for the former, but at this point it's a coin flip which team we'll get Tuesday night. Because I 100% expected us to play big today. And while we didn't do that and continued to be sloppy and undisciplined, we did what we needed to do to even the series going home, and then we fell apart in the last 4 minutes.

 

I think it is all of the above. Coaches and players. I don't put it anymore on the coaches than I do the players. Pass it all around. The coaches weren't on ice when we had a 5-3 lead with 3 and change left in the game. Was it great coaching that got us to that point with a 98% chance to win the game at that point? Give me a 5-3 lead with 3 and change left every game and I'll sign for it right now.

Pass the blame all around I think.

 

You got to be fucking kidding me. You have a two-goal lead multiple times and you blow it to the pussy ass senators. I don't care what anybody says Hank fucking blows big games. The fucking prospect pool suck ass tonight too. Should've traded Fuckin Hayes Zibanejad, not Brassard

 

Yeah, well this was an unexpected result. Like I seriously believed in AV coached team and this core. Managing to screw it up somehow when it matters the most. The thing with Hank is he can steal one maybe two series but then implode like the rest of them because he checks out mentally like the rest of the bozos.

 

I am not surprised at all. The caps are a regular season team and always have been with Ovie.