Henrik Lundqvist is the goaltender the Rangers live by — and yes, Virginia, the Rangers do live in this series — and these are the words the King lives by when his team is down to its final out as it was on what became a rollicking Wednesday night at the Garden:
“It’s about competing; when everything is on the line, you have to challenge yourself the right way personally and as a team,” Lundqvist said after his 40-save performance lifted the Blueshirts to a tense 2-1 Game 4 victory over the Kings that sends the Stanley Cup finals back across the continent to Los Angeles for Friday night’s very necessary Game 5. “You have to leave it all out there and be extra focused.
“One mistake and your season is over. You are definitely aware of that,” the King said after his first career victory in the Cup finals. “You know everything can be over, so you try even harder to be focused and make the right decisions.
“It’s tough but it’s fun, especially when it’s that intense.”
If anyone knows about what it takes to avoid everything being over, it’s the franchise goaltender, if not the Blueshirts themselves. For the Rangers have survived five potential elimination games this spring in which Lundqvist has surrendered five goals. They have won eight straight potential elimination games at the Garden dating back to the second round of 2008, with Lundqvist yielding a total of eight goals with a 0.99 goals-against average and .968 save percentage.
“He never stops surprising me,” said Derek Stepan, who used his glove to swat away a Tanner Pearson deflection that had leaked before stopping in a little snowbank in the crease just an inch in front of the goal line with 1:11 to play in the third. “He’s our best player. He’s going to need to be in L.A.”
The Rangers played with urgency from the get-go, dedicated to making life miserable for Jonathan Quick, the Kings goaltender who entered the match with a shutout string of 115:36 after having allowed six goals in the opening 99:25 of the series. The Blueshirts attacked, they set the tempo … and they gained a 2-0 lead by the 6:27 mark of the second period.
Two-nothing, just like it was in L.A. in both Games 1 and 2, matches the Blueshirts would lose in overtime and double overtime, respectively; matches in which the Rangers had a sum of four two-goal leads.
Wednesday, 2-0 became 2-1 at 8:46 of the second when Dustin Brown scored on a breakaway that resulted when Dan Girardi’s stick broke as the defenseman tried to play the puck at the right point.
“My first thought there was, ‘Here we go again.’ They had a little push right after that,” Lundqvist said. “It was extremely important for us to keep the puck out. I felt we needed to keep that score into the third.”
The Rangers didn’t have the puck much at all over the final 33 minutes as the Kings came in waves on the rush, driving to the net with the same impunity as in the first two games during which they scored eight goals.
But Lundqvist would not bend, much less break under the pressure that he puts on his own broad shoulders. When Marty St. Louis scored for the 2-0 lead, the Kings owned a 14-13 advantage in shots.
The Kings then outshot the Rangers 27-6 the rest of the way, creating more than a handful of Grade A chances, including glorious tries in close from Pearson, Jeff Carter and Marian Gaborik.
“Don’t fool yourself, either; Hank stood on his head, he made some big saves at big times for us,” Stepan said. “Those are the plays that we needed, the moments that shift the momentum.”
The Cup was in the house on Wednesday. It stayed in its crate. Now it goes cross-country just like the Kings and the Rangers.
“I did not want to see the Cup come out on our home ice,” Lundqvist said. “Just the thought of it makes me sick. The goal is to see it for Game 7.”
One potential elimination game down, three to go.