BOSTON — New opponent, new strategy, but the woes of the Rangers’ power play continue.
In Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Bruins on Thursday night, the Blueshirts went 0-for-3 on the man-advantage, wasting 5:35 of prime-time scoring chances. Couple that with a 2-for-28 in the seven-game, first-round series with the Capitals, and the Rangers seem to have a pretty serious problem on their hands.
“Yeah, it is [frustrating],” Rick Nash said yesterday. “I said early on that special teams wins games and wins series.”
The Bruins’ penalty kill is one of the most aggressive in the league, helped by the slew of highly skilled defensive forwards on their roster. That means the Blueshirts are going to have to make some adjustments, something coach John Tortorella readily — and shockingly — admitted.
“You don’t have to stick to it,” Tortorella said. “I’m not going to get too deep into it, but we’re trying to get better.”
Tortorella and his staff — assistant coach Mike Sullivan deals specifically with the power play — normally try not to inundate their players with video sessions, especially in the playoffs. But the power play has gotten to a point at which they have to address certain issues, or it could cost them dearly.
“We are showing video of our special teams,” Tortorella said, “and we’ll continue to do that right on through the series.”
* Defenseman Marc Staal joined an optional practice yesterday afternoon at TD Garden, but was ushered into a separate locker room and not made available to the media.
Staal did not travel with the team to Boston on Wednesday, and has played just one game since sustaining his gruesome right-eye injury on March 5. His status is undetermined.
* Tortorella had another comical exchange with reporters, playing a little semantic game when someone tried to ask him about Nash’s scoring drought in a roundabout way.
“Are you asking me if Nasher is playing good enough?” Tortorella said.
When told that was the question, in essence, Tortorella responded: “Ask me that way and you’ll get an easy answer instead of beating around the bush. If I want to answer it.”
When the reporter said he knew the coach would not answer such a blunt question, Tortorella said, “I don’t want to answer it, so I’m not going to answer it. Good try.”