Offense & Depth Big Reasons for Rangers’ Downfall at LinesMaker

Offense & Depth Big Reasons for Rangers’ Downfall

NEW YORK (NHL/Lozo) — The expec­ta­tions at the start of the 2011-12 reg­u­lar sea­son for the New York Rangers were tepid at best. They were com­ing off a first-round exit and a com­plete whiff of the Stan­ley Cup Play­offs the pre­vi­ous two sea­sons, and top defense­man Marc Staal was out indef­i­nitely with a concussion.

Seven months later, the youth­ful Rangers were East­ern Con­fer­ence cham­pi­ons and appeared at times to be a team of des­tiny dur­ing the play­offs. They ral­lied from a 3–2 series deficit in the first round, came back to win Game 5 in the sec­ond round against the Cap­i­tals with a goal by Brad Richards in the final sec­onds of reg­u­la­tion and a goal from Staal in over­time, then watched goal­tender Hen­rik Lundqvist steal two of the first three games of the con­fer­ence finals against the Devils.

In the end, the Rangers sim­ply ran out of gas, los­ing in six games to the Dev­ils to end one of the more sur­pris­ing sea­sons in recent years.

“I really like what we have here,” Rangers coach John Tor­torella said fol­low­ing his team’s 3–2 over­time loss in Game 6 against the Dev­ils on Fri­day night. “I don’t think it will be the same. There’s always changes. But what they have — what our group has devel­oped in their iden­tity, their mind­set — I think showed tonight. Again, we don’t get it done, but I just like the way they han­dle themselves.”

There’s a lot to like about the Rangers’ future, but they will be think­ing about this missed oppor­tu­nity for quite some time. How did they get so close to a Stan­ley Cup but come up short? Here are five rea­sons for the Rangers’ play­off demise:

1. Offen­sive ineptitude

Dur­ing the reg­u­lar sea­son, the Rangers were above aver­age at scor­ing goals, get­ting 2.71 per game. With the team allow­ing 2.22 goals per game, it was more than enough to win 51 games and come within two points of cap­tur­ing the Pres­i­dents’ Trophy.

Dur­ing the post­sea­son, when every inch of ice around the net becomes prime real estate teams are will­ing to defend with their lives, the offense dried up. The Rangers aver­aged 2.15 goals per game in 20 con­tests and allowed 2.05 per game. At 5-on-5, the Rangers were sim­ply dread­ful, scor­ing only 27 goals (1.35 per game) after scor­ing 150 (1.83) in the reg­u­lar season.

There were many cul­prits in the play­offs when it comes to pass­ing blame.

Richards and Gaborik, who com­bine to hold a salary-cap hit of about $ 14 mil­lion, com­bined for one goal and four assists in six games against the Dev­ils. Cap­tain Ryan Calla­han, who was likely play­ing with an injury for most of the post­sea­son, had three goals in the final three games against the Dev­ils but just six over­all. Rookie Carl Hagelin, who had 38 points in 64 games in the reg­u­lar sea­son, had just three assists in 17 post­sea­son games.

The offense dried up when the Rangers needed it most, and as a result, the bril­liance of Lundqvist (1.82 GAA, .931 save per­cent­age, three shutouts) was wasted in the playoffs.

How the Rangers address the sit­u­a­tion will be one of the biggest sto­ries of the off­sea­son. Dev­ils cap­tain Zach Parise will be an unre­stricted agent July 1, and per­haps the Rangers will revisit trade talks with the Colum­bus Blue Jack­ets in an attempt to land Rick Nash. If the Rangers go after Nash, there’s no chance that rookie Chris Krei­der, who had five goals in the play­offs, will be part of any packages.

2. The grind­ing Rangers were ground down

To be clear, nary a Ranger was will­ing to admit that fatigue had any­thing to do with los­ing four of the final five games of the con­fer­ence finals, but their inabil­ity to close out teams in the first two rounds cou­pled with the team’s grind­ing style for 82 games appeared to wear the Rangers down.

The top-seeded Rangers were pushed to seven games in the first two rounds by the eighth-seeded Sen­a­tors and seventh-seeded Cap­i­tals. The Rangers played their 20 post­sea­son games over a span of 43 days and were never afforded a sec­ond full day of rest. They also played their final 21 regular-season games over 38 days before a four-day respite before the playoffs.

Whether the Rangers were sapped men­tally or phys­i­cally, they had six slow starts against the Dev­ils and were only able to over­come two of them thanks to Lundqvist’s pair of shutouts. In the first four games, the Rangers were on their heels for nearly the entire game, but they finally began to adjust to the Dev­ils’ attack­ing style in Games 5 and 6, but by then it was too late.

While some Rangers saw their play dip as the post­sea­son moved for­ward, oth­ers raised their game despite play­ing record minutes.

With Staal out for the first 36 games of the reg­u­lar sea­son, the weight of that work­load fell into the lap of Dan Girardi, who had an All-Star sea­son. The 28-year-old Girardi logged 2,689:36 in ice time in the reg­u­lar sea­son and play­offs, about 600 more min­utes than he played last season.

All Girardi did with that added respon­si­bil­ity was post three goals, nine assists and fin­ished plus-6 in the post­sea­son. For­ward Artem Anisi­mov improved steadily dur­ing the play­offs, as did Staal.

But many Rangers appeared to finally hit a wall they could not break through against the Devils.

3. Hen­rik Lundqvist became human

With a lack of sup­port for more than two rounds, the Vez­ina and Hart Tro­phy final­ist appeared poised to add the Conn Smythe Tro­phy to his resume. Lundqvist allowed two goals or less in 10 of 14 games over the first two rounds and only a third goal twice as those games went to overtime.

Lundqvist seemed poised to con­tinue his hero­ics against the Dev­ils. In Game 1, he had a 21-save shutout in a con­test that saw the Rangers dom­i­nated for two peri­ods before scor­ing three times in the third period to claim vic­tory. Game 3 was a car­bon copy, as Lundqvist once again held the fort for two peri­ods before his team­mates found their scor­ing touch. In that win, Lundqvist made 36 saves.

Game 3 was the end of the road for Lundqvist’s ster­ling play. He allowed 10 goals on 74 shots (.865 save per­cent­age) over the final three games of the series, and his team­mates were unable to pick him up as he had for them through­out the playoffs.

4. It sim­ply wasn’t the Rangers’ time

Through­out the his­tory of the NHL, there is a long list of young teams on the rise that had to take their lumps in the form of crush­ing play­off defeats because they weren’t ready to win. The Rangers learned to raise their game in the face of adver­sity in the first two rounds, but they were at a loss to do so against the Devils.

Would the 2010 Black­hawks have won the Stan­ley Cup if not for their run to the con­fer­ence finals the pre­vi­ous sea­son? Would the 2009 Pen­guins have found a way to beat the Red Wings if not for los­ing in the Final to Detroit the pre­vi­ous sea­son? Could the 1995 Dev­ils have emerged vic­to­ri­ous against the highly favored Wings if not for a crush­ing defeat at the hands of the Rangers in the con­fer­ence finals in 1994?

The Rangers have a young core, many of which never escaped the first round. Lundqvist, Staal, Calla­han and Girardi had never been beyond the sec­ond round. Almost the entire ros­ter was in uncharted ter­ri­tory in the third round, and it showed at times.

5. The Dev­ils were a bet­ter team

Some­times play­ers or coaches will drop the old, “I thought we were the bet­ter team” after a loss. No one around the Rangers was say­ing that after they were elim­i­nated by the Devils.

Depth is king in the play­offs, and the Rangers didn’t have enough of it to match the Devils.

The Rangers employed a five-man defense unit through­out the play­offs with either Stu Bickel or Steve Eminger get­ting off the bench for about 4–6 min­utes of ice time per game. While Tor­torella shied away from using his sixth defense­man, Dev­ils coach Peter DeBoer was will­ing to throw Peter Har­rold on the ice for about 14 min­utes per game.

As far as fourth lines go, the Rangers have a pretty good one when they have Mike Rupp and Bran­don Prust on the wings of either cen­ter John Mitchell or Brian Boyle. How­ever, the Dev­ils had a bet­ter one with Stephen Gionta cen­ter­ing Steve Bernier and Ryan Carter.

The Dev­ils’ top play­ers out­per­formed the Rangers’ top play­ers, and that includes between the pipes too. It all trans­lated into a six-game vic­tory for the Dev­ils that could’ve been a sweep if not for Lundqvist in Games 1 and 3.

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