Few of the first 199 wins of Henrik Lundqvist’s Rangers career came harder than No. 200.
After spending the night looking around Kings’ screens, Lundqvist surrendered two hard-earned third-period leads.
The Rangers grabbed their first lead 2-1 after Marian Gaborik’s goal, but 1:40 later Matt Greene beat Lundqvist on an unscreened point drive that ticked off Brian Boyle’s stick. Late in the third period, the Blueshirts regained a 3-2 advantage on Artem Anisimov’s goal, but 47 seconds later Lundqvist gave it up again, getting beat on Dustin Brown’s wraparound.
But Lundqvist got it done in the end. He nailed down the 4-3 shootout victory last night at the Garden when he got his blocker up on an Anze Kopitar shot and made the save despite staggering backward.
Had ’em all the way, did Henrik, thanks to Erik Christensen and Mats Zuccarello making Kings’ backup Jonathan Bernier look sick in the shootout, and thanks to the Rangers refusing to curse their luck or their goalie, who kept moving back the finish line on them.
But then if they had spent 59 games standing on their heads, waiting for Lundqvist to stand on his, all the blood in their playoff push would have poured out their ears by now.
Lundqvist had a reasonably strong January, but he has had games where he gave his team zero chance to win. But despite being singled out by coach John Tortorella on Feb. 3 for criticism over a three-game winless streak, Lundqvist was not as bad as the coach implied.
Going into last night, Lundqvist’s goals against average, 2.38, was 11th in the league and his save percentage, .921, was in a three-way tie for ninth. But seven scattered shutouts aside, an extended, team-carrying, hot streak we have not seen either.
Tortorella wasn’t about to wage a full-scale critique on his goalie.
“You’re trying to box me into a corner,” he said. “I’m not going to go there.”
This was an essential non-reply which, containing neither “fabulous” nor “worst I’ve seen since Mike Dunham” actually answered the question.
During the skid, the coach was not thrilled to see his goalie had been on celebrity row for a Knicks game. Since those games do not begin at 2:30 a.m., we don’t see the problem, but we do sense some tension between the coach and goalie.
“I don’t think he has been dead on,” Tortorella said when asked a question about short-term Hank, before the one about the long-term Hank. “I don’t think he thinks he’s dead on, but I’m sure he will be there when we need him.”
Which Lundqvist was last night.
“They bank one in on him and he gets it done in the end, good stuff for Hank,” Tortorella said.
Indeed, all’s well that ends well practically every time.
“Today, I felt like my positioning was there and I saw the puck pretty well,” Lundqvist said. “They needed some luck to get back in the game.
“I had a couple games I didn’t play that well but it was over [the All Star break] so it felt like a long time. You win two in a row, you get more relaxed.”
The Rangers still have a six-point hold on a playoff spot without a Hot Henrik, so one would assume that they don’t need him scorching to maintain it. But they are going to require an intimidating Lundqvist against a first-round opponent certain to have superior firepower. He has to be the Rangers edge, for no better reason than he can be against conference powers without an elite goalie in the bunch.