It’s not going to get any easier for the Rangers than it did on Thursday night.
At least that’s the approach the Blueshirts are taking after limiting the Flyers to 15 total shots in a 4-1 win, taking Game 1 of this opening-round playoff series.
“As [the] series goes on, as [the] playoffs go on, they’re going to get better and better,” alternate captain Marc Staal said after Friday’s optional skate in which seven skaters took the ice, him not included, to join both goaltenders. “We’ll look to improve, I’m sure they will, too. Who knows — it’ll keep getting amped up as far as the series goes. So you expect improvements throughout.”
Staal and his Blueshirted brethren could certainly send a shock not just through this series, but throughout the whole league if they put together an encore performance come Game 2 on Easter Sunday at noon at the Garden. With a lot of the talk coming in focused on the Flyers and their physicality, as well as their talented top line centered by possible Hart Trophy candidate Claude Giroux, the Rangers stayed cool and never allowed Philadelphia to sustain any offensive pressure.
The Rangers were shorthanded for just two minutes the whole night, while Giroux and linemate Jakub Voracek, who combined for 51 goals this season, didn’t register a single shot on net.
“We controlled the puck for most of the game and caused them not to have it a lot,” said Staal, who partnered with Anton Stralman and ended up playing quite a bit against Giroux’s line. “When they don’t have the puck they can’t be very effective in the offensive zone. So I think we did a good job of controlling it.”
Controlling the puck is not a new idea in terms of figuring out how to win, and there doesn’t need to be any new-age advanced statistic to show the Rangers excel when they outshoot their opponent (36-15) and out-attempt them (69-42).
But the Flyers didn’t finish third in the Metropolitan Division out of pure luck, and they ended the regular season ranked 14th in the league while averaging 30.4 shots per game. Yet, look up that list, all the way to No. 2, and there are the Rangers, behind only the Sharks in averaging 33.2 shots per game.
So as in any series, it’s a matter of execution, something the Rangers are not taking lightly, no matter what happened in the first game.
“I think it’s going to be a tough game,” goalie Henrik Lundqvist said, allowing himself to look ahead to Sunday. “I think they’re going to come hard. Whatever happened [Thursday], we move past that. Sometimes things change a lot from game to game, you can’t just go in with a certain expectation. You have to be ready for anything.”
What the Rangers certainly can be ready for is a Flyers team hungry to get this series back to Philadelphia split at one game apiece. The two teams split the regular-season series, with each winning two games at home, so the Rangers know a 2-0 lead going into Tuesday’s Game 3 at the Wells Fargo Center will be a lot better than 1-1.
“We know that our opponent on Sunday morning is going to be ready, is going to be better, and we’re going to need to prepared and we’re going to need to be better,” Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said. “We’re aware of that.”