BUFFALO — Minutes following Monday’s disappointing 5-2 Garden defeat to the Penguins in which Henrik Lundqvist had allowed a tying or winning goal in the final 10 minutes for the third time in his last six starts, the goaltender said it was time for the Rangers to look themselves in the mirror.
Last night, minutes after his superior performance helped the Rangers to a 2-1 victory over the Sabres to snap their three-game losing streak, The King, who made 18 of his 36 saves in the third period, was asked what he’d seen peering at his own reflection.
“I saw myself being pretty good from a technical standpoint but that I needed to be more focused from beginning to end,” Lundqvist told The Post. “I saw some times where I made poor decisions even though I thought at the time I was making the right choices.
“The game is so fast that I cannot afford to lose my focus. That’s what I needed to work on mentally coming into this game. I think I was playing OK, but OK is not good enough in this league.”
It is not good enough to win on a club whose popgun offense has produced two goals or fewer in 12 of its last 16 games, that’s for sure. But it wasn’t only the goaltender who raised his level last night; far from it.
Fact is the Blueshirts played with determination and intelligence, taking care of details, winning puck battles and faceoffs all night long. They forechecked when the opportunity presented itself, forcing the Sabres to navigate the length of the rink. When the forecheck wasn’t there, they didn’t force it, instead falling back into a 1-2-2.
On this night at least, safe gave life to the Rangers, who’d been on a 6-12-1 death march since Oct. 19.
“We had three very important and constructive days of practice after Monday in which Torts [head coach John Tortorella] was extremely supportive,” said Chris Drury, outstanding at both ends of the rink and on draws, winning 13 of 21 overall and nine of 11 in the defensive zone.
“We needed to improve technically and we also needed to improve our overall consistent effort because if you play smart but not hard, you’re not getting anywhere. I thought we were sharp and we played hard from start to finish.”
The Rangers took the body, gave up their bodies to block shots and make plays while winning more than their share of battles for the puck. And when they were forced to fall back or get back on defense, they did so and in an intelligent manner.
Christopher Higgins converted a neat Marian Gaborik feed to beat Ryan Miller to snap a 10-game drought to give the Blueshirts a 1-0 lead at 17:31 of the first. Ryan Callahan went to the net to bury a Sean Avery rebound for his second goal in 11 games and a 2-0 lead at 13:44 of the third. That one became the winner when Jason Pominville beat Lundqvist on a laser with 58.1 seconds remaining.
“You never want to think that it’s early, because it isn’t in this league,” said Drury. “We know where we are, and we know how important it is for us to turn this around as quickly as possible.”
The Rangers turned it around here. In order to keep the revival going tonight at the Garden against the Red Wings, the Blueshirts will need to produce a mirror image of this one.