How rare is it that the Rangers got called for two separate embellishment penalties in one game?
Try, it’s happened only one other time in history since the rule was instituted for the 1998-99 NHL season.
The Blueshirts were called twice for “diving” in Sunday afternoon’s 4-2 loss to the Flyers in Game 2 of their first-round series, now knotted at one game apiece.
Though the Rangers originally got information from the Elias Sports Bureau saying it was the first time any team had been called for two in one game, on Monday morning, the Rangers’ crack team of researchers found another game in which it happened: Game 6 of a Eastern Conference quarterfinal series between the Canadiens and Capitals on April 26, 2010, when Montreal was whistled for three embellishment calls: two on two on Maxim Lapierre and one on Brian Gionta.
The Rangers’ first “diving” call came with 8:40 gone by in the second period and the game tied, 2-2. Flyers defenseman Andrew MacDonald tossed down Mats Zuccarello near the goalmouth, and the diminutive Zuccarello went flying to the ice. MacDonald was called for interference, as well, and the teams played a scoreless two minutes of four-on-four.
Just three minutes later, Wayne Simmonds buried Derek Dorsett into the backboards — close to being simultaneous with a whistle — and Simmonds was called for a cross-check while Dorsett was called for a dive. The ever-pugnacious Dorsett got into Simmonds’ face, and nearby Dominic Moore and Scott Hartnell got into a little scrum that resulted in offsetting unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.
When Rangers coach Alain Vigneault was asked for his opinion on the diving calls, he knew silence was the best option.
“Does it matter?” he said, his team having gone 1-for-6 on the power play while the Flyers went 2-for-3. “You’d have to ask the referees.”
Then with under two minutes to go and the Rangers down, 3-2, goalie Henrik Lundqvist was leaving his crease for the extra attacker — set to be Brad Richards — when the puck came back into the Rangers zone and the referees blew it down for too-many-men.
“Richie was right by the bench, so sometimes they call it, sometimes they don’t,” Lundqvist said. “Today they called it.”
As a team predicated on rolling four lines, Vigneault was subjugated to mixing and matching his combinations in the third period in hopes of finding some offensive spark. Rookie Jesper Fast — who had been dealing with a touch of the flu — got just three third-period shifts, the final one starting with just 26 seconds remaining.
“Just shortening up the bench,” Vigneault said, whose only options for replacing Fast are J.T. Miller and Dan Carcillo.
Vigneault also gave just four third-period shifts apiece to Dorsett and Dominic Moore, while Martin St. Louis played the most among the forwards with 23:38. He was followed by Derek Stepan at 21:23 and Rick Nash at 20:48.
The Rangers have lost seven straight Game 2s, four consecutive losses at the Garden going back to 2012. It’s also the eighth straight time they’ve lost with a chance to take a two-game lead in a playoff series.
The most recent time they held at 2-0 lead goes back to the first round of 2009, when they won the first two against the Capitals before losing in seven games.