No one ever said it was going to be easy, and now the Rangers have no other choice but to know that’s true.
The Eastern Conference final took on a whole new level of intensity on Thursday night at the Garden, with a game that was more physical and more emotional and more gut-wrenching than the previous two.
So it was only appropriate that before most of the 18,006 could sit back in their seats for the start of overtime, they were greeted with the collective groan that came when a puck hit a 20-year-old kid named Alex Galchenyuk square in the chest, bounded over the goal line and gave the Canadiens a 3-2 win in Game 3, cutting the Rangers lead in the best-of-seven series to 2-1.
“It’s tough luck, that’s for sure,” said Henrik Lundqvist, who deflected a Tomas Plekanec shot that went up and hit Galchenyuk at 1:12 of the extra session for the game-winner. “It’s obviously extremely disappointing to lose this one. We played really well, but we just have to forget about it, move on and get ready for the next one.”
The Garden was extra stunned because regulation ended with such a flurry of excitement. In a game that the Rangers pretty much dominated from start to finish — outshooting the Canadiens, 37-25, and out-attempting them, 75-53 — they were still down, 2-1, as the clock ticked and ticked its way down to zero.
With 55.1 seconds left and the Rangers’ net empty, Martin St. Louis was stopped on an unbelievable save by rookie goaltender Dustin Tokarski, who played a spectacular game well beyond his scant experience. With just 30 seconds left, Dan Girardi corralled a puck in the corner and fired it to the goal, where Chris Kreider tipped it through his legs just enough so that it hit the right skate of Montreal defenseman Alexei Emelin, went over the goal line and in, tying it 2-2, sending the game into overtime and the newly engaged Garden crowd into a frenzy.
“I just wanted the guys to be ready right away because I knew they were going to attack,” said Montreal veteran Daniel Breire, relaying what he told the team in the intermission after scoring with 3:02 remaining in regulation to give his team what seemed like a solid 2-1 lead.
“They had momentum. I said, ‘We have to take it to them.’ It’s nice that they listened.”
The tone for this game was set just three minutes in, when former Ranger Brandon Prust pasted Derek Stepan with a late hit, a shoulder to the chin that sent Stepan spinning to the ice and didn’t draw a penalty. What it did draw was the ire of the Rangers, who had Dan Carcillo charge at Prust the next time he was on the ice, shortly followed by Derek Dorsett engaging him in a fight.
Carcillo was tossed from the game for tussling with linesman Scott Driscoll, and when by the end of the first, the seemingly omnipresent Carl Hagelin gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead on a bat-in goal.
“Last game they might have been the better team and we won,” said Hagelin, whose goal was wiped out when Andrei Markov got one 3:20 into the second. “Tonight, we were the better team and they won.”
That would be the way it works sometimes in playoff hockey, and there are no consolation prizes for those that gave the best effort. Instead, what the Rangers are looking at is the stark reality of a series that is carrying a much different tenor from just a day ago, and it’s one that is yet again a grind.
“It’s tough right now,” Brad Richards said. “Obviously, we went out there [in overtime] with other intentions. That’s the way hockey goes sometimes, but you have to live with it, clear your head up, move on, battle hard the next day and get back to work.”