BOSTON — It is not an enviable position the Rangers are in, not by any stretch of the imagination. But just two weeks ago they were in the same hole, facing the same dire circumstances, and they found a way to claw out.
So Sunday afternoon’s 5-2 loss to the Bruins at TD Garden in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals was not a reason for panic, at least not inside the Rangers locker room. Because the 2-0 series deficit they are now addressing is the same they faced in the first round against the Capitals, the series the Rangers won in seven games.
“We don’t want to lose two games here, no one does,” coach John Tortorella said. “But there’s no give in this team. There will be no give in this team. We need to go win a game. Not look anywhere else, just try to win our first home game this series.”
That would be tomorrow night at the Garden, where last week the Rangers fought back in taking both games from the Capitals and not allowing their season to teeter over the cliff. Upon returning to New York that time, Tortorella never thought his team was far off, saying they were “close” as if he knew what was coming.
Yet that was the Capitals, not the Bruins, not this burly team with a championship pedigree that has shown again and again why mixing a bit of grind with a bit of talent is a recipe for success.
“I think playing the Bruins is about paying attention to details in the game, and I think they have been the better team in that department,” said goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who made 27 saves on 32 shots and was outplayed all afternoon by his counterpart, Tuukka Rask. “All the details in the game, they play a solid team game and so do we. But when you lack that little bit, it’s a tough game.”
For most of the opening two periods, the Rangers had the edge on scoring chances, but Rask stood tall, leaving large swaths of his net open to make athletic saves with a flair for the dramatic.
“The first two periods are our best two periods of playoff hockey we had,” said captain Ryan Callahan, who tied the game 1-1 on a breakaway 8:01 into the first and negated Boston rookie Torey Krug’s second goal in as many games. “That’s how it goes sometimes, you end up on the short end of the stick. They get one quick in the third there and that deflates you a little bit.”
That third goal for the Bruins came from Johnny Boychuk, who lifted a long wrist shot through traffic that snuck inside the left post with just under eight minutes remaining in the second period. It was even more deflating because earlier in the period, the Rangers finally got a goal from star winger Rick Nash, his first of the postseason, which equalized a go-ahead score from Gregory Campbell just 56 seconds prior.
“We had a lot of chances to take the lead or crawl back in a couple times,” Nash said, “but we just couldn’t finish around the net.”
On a 4-on-4 minutes after his goal, Nash made a great pass in front of the net to Ryan McDonagh, who was stoned by Rask with a lunging shoulder save. That shifted the momentum back to the Bruins, and after Boychuk came finishers from Brad Marchand and Milan Lucic, burying the Rangers and sending them packing with an authoritative defeat.
“We gave it to them,” Lundqvist said, knowing that any more gifts would make for a lot different story than the one witnessed last week.
bcyrgalis@nypost.com