MONTREAL — The long and winding road to the Stanley Cup is littered with off-ice innuendo and human-interest stories. Because it is the human element we celebrate.
But in the end, it is the hockey that gets a team to the finish line … the hockey that gets a team to the starting line of the Stanley Cup Final.
And, giving the Rangers all of their due for posting 11 postseason victories that have this team on the cusp on clinching the Eastern Conference final, the hockey will have to be much, much better if the Blueshirts are to get it done in Game 5 on Tuesday night and close out the best-of-seven series.
The Canadiens will scratch and claw and do whatever else is necessary to extend this series, during which they have led for a sum of 2:50 of the 244:46 the clubs have been on the ice. But now is the time for the Rangers to drop the hammer on this Montreal squad, which doesn’t seem to have the requisite weapons to advance.
Fans of a certain vintage who cringe at the memory of roadrunner Yvan Cournoyer torching the Blueshirts at the old Forum will recognize and delight in the irony that the faster, better ice in Montreal should prove beneficial to the Rangers, whose up-tempo game was muffled on the Garden rink, on which the puck took more bad hops than the World Series grounder that hit Tony Kubek in the throat.
The Rangers want pace; they live on it. Carl Hagelin, the latter-day descendant of Roadrunner Cournoyer, has emerged as a force against Montreal, all flash and dash, and if only that long blond hair were free to wave in the breeze the way Gene Carr’s did so many years ago.
The better ice should benefit all of the Rangers, who seemed frustrated — but not defeated — by all of the bounces of pucks left in front of the net by goaltender Dustin Tokarski, whose aggressive style has at times flummoxed opposing shooters. In Game 3, how many times were the Rangers in alone, only to see the puck roll at the last moment? Rick Nash, who scored in each of the first two matches in Montreal, seemed particularly cursed at home.
The Blueshirts’ lack of discipline in a Game 4 during which they were shorthanded a season-high eight times, with seven penalty-kill situations resulting from offensive-zone penalties, was an aberration. Well, it better have been. Because a similar display in Game 5 will undoubtedly beget Game 6. The penalty kill can only be asked to do so much. Sunday was too much.
Brian Boyle has re-established his value as a big-game Ranger and perhaps to the point where it’s no longer a given that the impending unrestricted free agent will be encouraged to seek greener pastures. Derick Brassard, a pending restricted free agent, has burnished his big-game credentials he first established last year.
The Blueshirts didn’t spend nearly enough time in the Montreal zone in the twin overtime games at the Garden and didn’t create nearly enough off the cycle. And they haven’t quite been able to get into a rhythm rolling four lines since the first three minutes of Game 1, compelled to shift Dominic Moore into a different role in order to mitigate the absences of first, Brassard, and then Derek Stepan.
The fourth-line label as applied to Moore, Boyle and Derek Dorsett is not a pejorative. That unit has been integral to the Rangers’ success. They are less without it.
But these are the playoffs and coping with injuries is as much a part of the journey as bouncing pucks. The Rangers have lost three forwards in four games to injuries sustained by unpenalized hits — Brassard in Game 1, Stepan in Game 3 and J.T. Miller in Game 4 — and yet they have persevered, just as the Canadiens have without Carey Price. By the way, how’s that for false equivalency?
Marc Staal has been fierce in one-on-one battles. Kevin Klein had his finest game as a Ranger on Sunday, stout in his own end, spry and creative in the offensive zone. Ryan McDonagh is back from wherever he’d been earlier in the playoffs and Dan Girardi keeps on keeping on; a fair-market bargain.
Sometimes you watch the Rangers and you wonder how they’re doing it beyond the brilliance of Henrik Lundqvist, who, you might recall, once had a problem winning in Montreal. But this is a team dotted with big-game players benefitting from the cool-hand leadership of Brad Richards (another contract-related conversation for another time) and Martin St. Louis. Game 5 will be the Rangers’ 51st playoff match over the last three springs.
The Rangers are on the cusp of playing for the Stanley Cup. It is time for the next step. It is time to lay down the hammer.