The Rangers have spent all season diving in front of one shot after another. In their series against the Capitals, which returns to Madison Square Garden tonight for Game 5, the Blueshirts have been getting a taste of their own medicine.
In their 3-2 loss to Washington in Game 4, the Rangers saw 26 of their shots get blocked on their way to the net, giving the Rangers very few genuine scoring opportunities against Capitals goaltender Braden Holtby.
“It’s hard to play against a team like that,” Rangers captain Ryan Callahan said. “They’re really good in the defensive zone, and they’re similar to us and our style in the way we block shots, we collapse.
“I think the big thing is frustration … you can’t let that creep in. You’ve just got to keep banging away and keep playing. We’re not frustrated in here. We realize what we have to do, we just have to go out there and do it.”
Brad Richards said it’s hard to be frustrated by the Rangers’ lack of scoring in the series when they are creating so few true scoring chances against Holtby in the first place.
“If we looked and we had 25 chances a night, 40 shots a night, maybe you start to get frustrated,” he said. “But I don’t think we’ve done that.
“I don’t think he’s had to stand on his head too often. It’s more being worried about what we have to do and get more [shots] at him and see where it goes from there.”
With the Capitals scrambling and diving all over the ice to keep the Rangers from peppering Holtby with shots, though, doing so is easier said than done.
“We just have to figure out a way to get more pucks in the [crease], get some more shots through,” Rangers coach John Tortorella said. “There’s a lot of different ways that you try to do that … it depends on the situation.
“There were certain times we had chances to make plays and we didn’t, and they did. That’s what it comes down to. They made a big offensive play, a big defensive play, and in these games that is what determines winning or losing.”
Now, after the two teams have split the first four games in the series, the Rangers will be hoping to find a way to create more opportunities tonight and take a 3-2 lead in the series after they dropped Game 5 in the same situation in the first round against Ottawa.
“It’s not about the numbers when the playoffs start,” Tortorella said. “We just want to go about our business, and we didn’t expect anything different.
“Did we want to win two in a row and go up 3-1? Sure. Every team wants to do that … it’s just the way it is. This is a very tight series, and we’ll continue to play.”