MONTREAL — Brad Richards could not tell a lie.
“I’d love to be able to tell you that my mind was on Montreal, but that’s not the case,” the Blueshirts’ alternate captain said after Saturday’s 1-0 defeat to the Canadiens in an entertaining season finale that was decided when Brian Gionta beat Cam Talbot on a penalty shot at 2:04 of overtime.
“The truth is that I was thinking about the Flyers from the time I found out [before the game] that we’d be playing them,” Richards said. “You want to know who and where, and now we know. I think we’re all pretty excited to turn the page, get this week going and start the second season.”
Yep, when the bell rings on the postseason Thursday night at the Garden, it will be Rangers-Flyers and all that entails for the first time in a playoff series since 1997, and 40 years after the Dale Rolfe-Dave Schultz incident that has colored pretty much everything that ever has happened since in this honest-to-goodness, don’t-like-each-other-at-all rivalry.
Saturday’s match against a Montreal team that vaulted into second place in the Atlantic Division by one point over the Lightning — who finish their season Sunday in Washington needing a victory for first-round home ice against the Canadiens — was a spirited and often chippy affair that featured endless post-whistle scrums that should prepare the Rangers well for what lays ahead.
“Rangers-Flyers in the playoffs; what’s better than that?” Marc Staal asked rhetorically. “I really haven’t thought too much about them at this point. I’ll take tonight to unwind and start thinking about them [on Sunday].
“We know what’s ahead of us. It’s going to be tough and it’s going to be tight.”
The Blueshirts played diligently and with an abundance of energy in Saturday’s match, but they simply could not beat Carey Price. Coach Alain Vigneault gave the night off to Ryan McDonagh, Dan Girardi and Martin St. Louis for what was a meaningless match in the standings for his club that finished the season 45-31-6, and 29-13-4 beginning with a Dec. 22 victory at the Garden against Minnesota.
“We came to play and we played hard,” Vigneault said. “The game didn’t mean anything to us, but we talked about coming here and finding our game. It was a great way to prepare.”
Talbot, who shut out the Canadiens 1-0 on Nov. 15 to break a streak in which the Rangers had lost seven straight in regulation in Montreal by an aggregate 25-3 score, was outstanding yet again, beaten only by Gionta’s backhand off a neat deke. That ended his personal shutout streak in New York’s House of Horrors at 122:04.
“You don’t want a game like that to end on a penalty shot in overtime,” said the 26-year-old goaltender, who allowed two goals or fewer in 16 of his NHL starts in his first NHL season. “I thought I did a pretty decent job [on the penalty shot] but he made a great move.”
The penalty shot was awarded when Raphael Diaz took down Gionta at the blue line, but Vigneault laid the blame at the feet of Kevin Klein. “The puck was bouncing there. … He should have backed off,” the coach said.
The Rangers won’t be able to afford backing off against the Flyers. Saturday’s match was officiated disgracefully by the Wes McCauley-Gord Dwyer referee tandem, with a couple of outrageous calls made (or not made) against Derek Dorsett, a target all night. Just as well the Blueshirts get used to it.
“I don’t know If “proud” is the right word to use about this game, but we came here and played hard. That can only help us be ready,” Staal said.
Ready or not, the Flyers beckon.
Said Vigneault: “We’re as ready as we can be.”