PHILADELPHIA — This one wasn’t lost for a lack of commitment or work ethic. It wasn’t lost for a lack of killer instinct, either.
No; even if this 2-1 Game 4 defeat here on Friday night to the Flyers represented the ninth straight time dating back to 2012 that the Rangers dropped a playoff game while holding a one-game series lead, this one was lost for the most basic and most familiar of reasons — the inability to score the critical goal at the critical time.
And though this was a team-wide failure, and though there were stretches of the match in which Rick Nash was the best Rangers forward on the ice — including much of the final 1:20 when the Blueshirts swarmed the Flyers’ net after pulling Henrik Lundqvist for the extra attacker — the fact of the matter is this was the exact type of game, if not the exact game itself, for which Nash was acquired from Columbus.
Remember, Rangers’ management was certain that a game-buster not only such as Nash, but Nash himself, was the missing ingredient in 2012, when the Blueshirts were limited to two goals or fewer in 13 of their 20 playoff matches before finally going down in six to New Jersey in the conference finals.
That was the impetus for the trade in July of 2012 in which the Rangers undertook an extreme makeover by sending Brandon Dubinsky (who has emerged as the dominant force in the Blue Jackets’ first-round series against Pittsburgh), Artem Anisimov;,Tim Erixon and a first-round draft pick to Columbus for Nash.
The Rangers already had a sniper in Marian Gaborik, that’s true, but the prevailing opinion was that Gaborik lacked the right stuff to score in the playoffs. Before he was sent away to the Blue Jackets at the 2013 trade deadline for Derick Brassard, Derek Dorsett and John Moore as New York restocked the shelves they had emptied for Nash, Gaborik scored six goals in 25 playoff games for the Rangers.
Since coming to New York, Nash has scored one goal in 16 playoff games, getting that one in last year’s Game 2 defeat in Boston.
Nash had five shots on 11 attempts, second in both categories to Brad Richards’ six and 14, respectively. He was stoned by Steve Mason on a rebound with 2:30 remaining in the first period with the score 1-1, just about seven minutes after Brayden Schenn had launched himself at the head of the previously twice-concussed No. 61, and was given two minutes for roughing after missing his target.
The winger wasn’t much of a factor at all through the second period — one shot from the right porch 1:35 in that Mason turned aside — and most of the third, unable to make a difference on a power play that went 0-for-4 with just five shots in eight minutes with the man-advantage, including the first 1:12 of the third of a four-on-three that was feeble.
But after quiet time, Nash nearly tied the match while the Rangers played with an extra attacker, weaving in and out of traffic, holding onto the puck in and out of traffic before sending a left wing backhand that skidded just wide with about 40 seconds remaining. There was a wrist shot that Mason ate with six seconds showing on the clock.
“I don’t think we made it difficult enough [on Mason],” said Nash, who has 23 shots in four games. “We need more traffic and to create more chances.”
The Rangers hold home-ice advantage in this series that, at 2-2, has now been distilled to a best-of-three, but nothing about the Garden and the way the Blueshirts have played on Broadway this season should infuse anyone with confidence about the outcome of this opening round, and certainly not if Mason is able to stay with — or even outdo — Lundqvist.
The Flyers, who played with five defensemen the final 34:35 after Nicklas Grossmann went down with a leg injury, were stout all night. The Blueshirts held a territorial advantage and did outshoot the Flyers 38-25, but this one was contested on reasonably even terms, with swings in momentum throughout.
This was an opportunity lost for the Rangers, and it was lost like so many of them two years ago, when all that stood between the Blueshirts and at least the Cup Final, if not the chalice itself, was a big-time goal scorer.