It’s probably the hardest thing to do in sports — turn off the conscious mind and just relax.
Well, that’s the plan now, with the Rangers having absolutely worked their tails off through the first four games of the second-round playoff series against the Capitals and trailing 3-1 in the best-of-seven contest, with the summer staring them in the face with Friday night’s Game 5 at the Garden.
“We’ve been talking about it all series long — do more, do more; try harder, try harder,” alternate captain Derek Stepan said Thursday on a conference call. “Maybe it’s just relaxing a little bit and letting the game come and be instinctive. I really don’t know. I can’t give you a 100 percent answer. We just have to find a way to score some goals.”It’s a confounding situation the Blueshirts are in, having created scoring opportunities, created offensive-zone time, forced Washington turnovers — yet they still can’t put the puck past goalie Braden Holtby with any regularity. The lone goal in the 2-1 Game 4 loss on Wednesday in Washington came from Derick Brassard, the only Ranger to score over the past eight periods, a sum total of two goals over 164:20 of game time.
“At this point,” Stepan said, “it comes down to we have to find a way to score some goals.”It’s not a problem the Rangers really had too much this season, finishing up their 82-game schedule ranked third in the league in goals per game with 3.02. Through nine games of the postseason, they’re averaging 1.78, the worst of any team still playing (and better only than their first-round opponent, the Penguins, of the 16 teams that made the tournament).
But that paints the regular season with one broad stroke, creating a rosy hue for something much more nuanced, which had its share of ups and downs, as well. But the Rangers always found a way to bounce back and break out of slumps. They have the Presidents’ Trophy to prove it.
“There are times in the regular season, as well, when we felt frustrated, and we figured those times out,” said Dominic Moore, elevated from his fourth-line role in Game 4 to a more offensive unit with Carl Hagelin and Kevin Hayes. “In a way, that’s something that we can take stock in. There are always times when you’re going through periods of frustration, and you just figure it out.
“Sometimes it’s one thing that can turn it around,” Moore continued, “but I think that one of things that we can take heart in right now is we know that we can find another level and we can find our way through frustration, because we’ve done it before. That’s a positive way of looking at it.”Another positive way of looking at it is the Rangers really can’t be too upset with their overall game. It’s that old cliche of doing the right thing and believing the results will follow, but that belief is all the Rangers have at this point.
“Our team is playing well,” coach Alain Vigneault said. “I could simplify it as easy as: They’ve made us pay for a couple of our mistakes, a couple of turnovers, and we haven’t been able to do the same. This is a game of mistakes, and you have to be able to score some goals.
“As much as I think our game is good, at the end of the day, we’re down, 3-1, and we’ve got to find a way to get it better.”The Rangers have been here before, down 3-1 to the Penguins in the second round last season. But that was a different Rangers team, rallying around the emotional death of Martin St. Louis’ mother, France, and the Capitals are quite a bit better than that Pittsburgh squad.So it’s going to take a big-time effort from the Blueshirts to force Game 6 in Washington on Sunday and keep this season from ending in disappointment. With their backs against the wall, the only option left is to leave it all on the ice.
“I think we have to go into [Game 5] and just play,” Stepan said. “That’s something that we have to make a focus for ourselves. Not worry about where the series is at. We just have to make sure we put an effort on the ice to give us the best chance to get to Game 6.”
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