BOSTON — Everyone understands the Penguins’ top-end talent featuring Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin is unparalleled in the East.
But still, the big, bad, dark and deep Bruins are the conference’s team to beat, regardless of Wednesday’s 6-1 pratfall in Detroit. They are more than a measuring stick for the Rangers; they set the bar the Blueshirts must chin over in order to achieve anything of note.
The NHL has a handful of very good teams, a large middle class of ordinary clubs and a backwash stable of lousy teams. The cap that supposedly was going to give everyone a chance to win, according to the wisdom of Gary Bettman, has not had the commissioner’s desired effect and instead only has enforced a standard of mediocrity.
Through 25 games, the 13-12-0 Rangers have been as ordinary as the record connotes. They’re up some days, down on others. Win a couple, lose a couple. Life in the middle lane.
But ordinary does not ordinarily cut it against the Bruins and isn’t likely to cut it on Causeway Street on Friday afternoon.
Playing the way they did in Wednesday night’s mistake-riddled and turnover-filled 5-2 victory in Florida that was essentially a Hanukkah gift from Tim Thomas and the Puddy Tats isn’t going to be enough, either, as the Rangers seek to finish this trip, on which they have gone 3-1, in style.
“When you play a really good team, especially like Boston, when you lose pucks in the wrong areas, it’s going to cost you,” Henrik Lundqvist said. “We have to really pay attention to that.”
Lundqvist, who was outstanding in Sunrise, Fla., on Thanksgiving Eve just as he was in the 3-2 victory in Dallas on Nov. 21 that opened the trip, will be in net against the Bruins. It will mark The King’s 29th straight regular-season start against the B’s and 15th straight in Boston, streaks that began with Lundqvist’s sophomore 2006-07 season.
Over his career, not including last spring’s five-game, second-round playoff defeat to the Bruins that included three straight losses on the road, Lundqvist is 9-4-2 with a 1.43 GAA and .954 save pct. in Boston.
If someone — say, goaltending coach Benoit Allaire — told Alain Vigneault of Lundqvist’s history in Boston, that may be why the coach chose No. 30 to start the front end of a challenging, marquee back-to-back that concludes Saturday afternoon when John Tortorella returns to the Garden behind the Vancouver bench.
It could also be Vigneault, who earlier in the week said he plans to split the assignments between Lundqvist and Cam Talbot, while also stating he would reserve the right to change his mind, tabbed The King for this one because it is a conference game.
Talbot (5-1, 1.41, .944) has yet to play at home in six starts and seven appearances. It would be a sure sign of the coach’s confidence in the 26-year-old if he’s nominated to make his Garden debut against Vigneault’s former team.
Vigneault, meanwhile, hasn’t shown much confidence at all in Michael Del Zotto, who was bumped from the lineup in favor of Justin Falk Wednesday night for the fourth time in the last seven games.
The coach talks about Falk adding “bite” to the club, but Del Zotto plays with a mean edge when on his game. It is unknown whether Del Zotto will be re-inserted for the match against the Bruins in the wake of a flawed performance by Falk against the Panthers.
To beat Boston, the Rangers need to play their best.