After piling up the rhetoric and coach-speak, and even belittling the question just hours before, Rangers coach Alain Vigneault was having no more of pulling punches.
Following a 2-0 Game 3 defeat to the Penguins on Monday night at the Garden, Vigneault’s team went down 2-1 in this second-round, best-of-seven playoff series. And then in his most declarative moment as Rangers coach, he let it rip about his team having to play five games in seven nights, the first team to do so in the postseason since 1989.
“We were forced to play a stupid schedule, and I’m real proud of how our guys handled it,” Vigneault said, his team having just outshot the Penguins, 35-15, out-attempted them, 69-38, and yet undercut by an inept power play that went 0-for-5 and is now without a goal in its past 34 opportunities.
“They handled it real well,” Vigneault continued. “We put our best foot forward in each and every game. We have a full day to recover [Tuesday], and we’ll get right back at it Wednesday.”
The Rangers played back-to-back games to end their first-round series with the Flyers, with Games 6 and 7 being in Philadelphia and New York, respectively, last Tuesday and Wednesday. They then had one day off to prepare for Pittsburgh, as they flew out on Thursday and split the pair out there on Friday and Sunday night, before coming home for this one.
“Look at the implications of the games,” Vigneault said. “Obviously, it’s a challenge both physically and mentally. I’m real proud of the way we handled it.”
Proud of the performance, maybe, but it’s also a game Vigneault spent Monday afternoon utterly dismissing as being predicated on fatigue.
“We’re in the second round of the NHL playoffs, we have a chance to compete for the Stanley Cup,” was how Vigneault so casually brushed off the question of his team’s rugged schedule. “We’re excited, we’re energized. We traveled [Sunday] night just like they did.
“I don’t see what the point is. We’re good to go.”
The point brought up to him was that Penguins coach Dan Bylsma has not played coy about trying to take advantage of all the hockey the Rangers have been forced to play. He reiterated his go-to phrase before this game, saying that his team “needs to make it a factor or it’s a moot point.”
After the Rangers held the play for most of the night, Bylsma knew that what has just transpired was not his team being fresher, not by a long shot. They were gifted two goals on breakaways, and both occurred less than 20 seconds after the Rangers had botched another man-advantage.
The first came 2:34 into the second from Sidney Crosby, his first of the postseason, and the second just 13 minutes later from Jussi Jokinen. That was all that was needed for goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who made 35 saves for a second consecutive shutout, the first time the Rangers have suffered consecutive playoff shutouts since the Stanley Cup final of 1937.
“I didn’t see a tired Rangers team,” Bylsma said. “It’s a lot of hockey games, but that’s the schedule.”
The fact is the Rangers man-advantage is transforming from a mere scapegoat into a villainous malcontent, one dead-set on sending the Rangers home for an early summer yet again. There were some good looks over their 9:58, but, just like their star players who for all their millions can’t buy a spot on the score sheet, the only thing that matters at this time of year is production.
“We did a lot of good things — everything but put it in the net,” Brad Richards said about the power play, now 3-for-42 in 10 postseason games. “A lot of looks all over the ice, different situations. One of those nights were we deserved a better fate, but we move on.”
And they move on now to Wednesday’s Game 4 with serious problems, another loss meaning Game 5 in Pittsburgh on Friday could be their last of the season.
“OK, we’re down by a game,” Vigneault said, “but if we play the same way we played tonight, I’m real confident we can have a better outcome Wednesday.”