In the smallest bit of snow on the ice, the Rangers’ season had found hope.
The clock at the Garden on Wednesday night showed 1:11 remaining in regulation in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals, with the Kings pushing, the Cup in the building, theirs for the taking.
The Rangers were barely holding on to a 2-1 lead. Los Angeles defenseman Alec Martinez took a long shot. It was deflected by teammate Tanner Pearson. It went through goalie Henrik Lundqvist’s legs, teetered on the goal line, and paused only by the friction of the accumulated ice chips — those fateful ice chips the Rangers are now so utterly thankful for.
“I’ve been in the game a long time to know that sometimes the hockey gods are there,” coach Alain Vigneault said minutes after the Rangers held on for a 2-1 win and staved off elimination for one more game. “They were there tonight.”
So was Derek Stepan, who dove and used the side of his glove to bat the puck back under Lundqvist. The whistle was blown by referee Wes McCauley, play was halted, the Garden fans rose in unison for an exaltation, sending their team back to Los Angeles for Game 5. The Kings still lead this best-of-seven series 3-1, but the Rangers can feel the tide turning, the luck flipping.
“After I push it back under him, I don’t know where it’s going or what’s going to happen,” Stepan said. “So it’s kind of a lucky play.”
Luck, that fickle mistress, one that has been reeking havoc with the Rangers through their first Cup finals in 20 years, helping to put them in that unenviable 3-0 hole. That luck, partnered with the utterly indomitable will of Lundqvist, kept the Rangers alive and gave the goaltender an absurd 11th win in his past 13 elimination games.
“He had to make some huge saves in the second and the third,” Vigneault said. “He got — and we got — a few bounces. You need those. Maybe the luck is changing a little bit.”
Among Lundqvist’s 40 saves, there was also a play with 8:10 remaining in the first when another puck got behind him and flirted with the goal line before defenseman Anton Stralman jumped to the rescue. After Jeff Carter whiffed at a puck sitting on the goal line, Stralman got his stick on top of Marian Gaborik’s and to the puck, clearing it inches before it had crossed that meaningful red border and keeping the lead at 1-0 after Benoit Pouliot’s first-period tip-in goal.
The Rangers got another goal from Martin St. Louis 6:27 into the second to make it 2-0, and then the Kings started pushing. They could smell their second championship in three years.
When the extension off the butt of Dan Girardi’s stick so unbelievably broke — luck is not such a simple thing — Kings captain Dustin Brown rushed down the ice and netted a breakaway goal, making it 2-1 with still 31:14 remaining in the game. From there, the Kings outshot the Rangers 26-3 — finishing with a 41-19 advantage — and yet the score remained the same.
“Even though in the third period they poured it on, I think we did a good job of trying to box out the guys and let Hank have a chance to see the puck,” Stepan said. “We gave up some chances because we probably sat back a little too much, but Hank stood tall.”
He did, and so did the rest of the team. The motto will of course will now just be to focus on Game 5, not thinking of Game 6 at the Garden on Monday, or another Game 7 back in Los Angeles next Wednesday.
But if a tale of a comeback is to start somewhere, this one started with some snow on the Garden ice.
“It just sat there,” Pearson said. “That’s the bottom line — it just sat there.”
And the Rangers got up off the mat and are now off to California, dreamin’ indeed.