EDMONTON, Alberta — So here come the Rangers into Vancouver for coach Alain Vigneault’s return to the city he called home for the last seven seasons, his team moving inexorably toward clinching a playoff spot while John Tortorella’s Canucks are on the verge of extinction.
“I don’t really have any thoughts on it,” Vigneault said following the Blueshirts’ 5-0 rout of the downtrodden, 29th-overall Oilers Sunday night. “We’re going to practice [Monday] and then it’s just another game we’re going to try to win.”
Tuesday’s match will hardly represent another game, but point taken, just as it will now take a combination of seven points the Rangers need to get over their final six matches — or the Capitals fail to get in their last seven games — to qualify for the postseason.
Yes, there’s a single-digit magic number for the Blueshirts to reach the playoffs for the eighth time in the last nine seasons following this victory that improved the club’s record to 6-1 in their last seven contests.
“We’re looking at every game like a must-win,” said Rick Nash, who scored twice and was beaten twice on breakaways by goaltender Ben Scrivens. “I think we were urgent right from the start in this one after the [4-3 loss on Friday] in Calgary, where we knew defensively we weren’t good enough.
“Improving that was our main focus.”
The Rangers, who tied a franchise record previously established three times with their 24th road victory (including those two at Yankee Stadium), scored twice while shorthanded and once with the man-advantage to lock this one down. Cam Talbot made 26 saves in recording his third shutout in 18 starts, obviously doing all that was necessary, even if doing so was not an especially burdensome task.
For the Blueshirts carried the play pretty much from the get-go, out-attempting the Oilers 27-7 in a first period that set the tone even if it were only 1-0 after 20 minutes, the visitors missing the net 12 times. The Rangers’ offense came from their defense, and their defense was a function of puck possession, especially below the hash marks.
“We played to our strengths,” Ryan McDonagh said. “We chipped it in, used our speed on the forecheck to get there and then were able to work down low.
“We talked before the game about tightening things up after what had happened in Calgary. I thought we responded very well.”
The power play, on a 1-for-22 nosedive, scored once, with Derick Brassard sneaking a right wing wrister through on a shot that ticked an Edmonton stick for a 2-0 lead early in the second, after Mats Zuccarello’s first of two had opened the scoring in the first. But the man-advantage unit moved the puck well most of the way, even if finishing 1-for-6.
Still, the Rangers were most pleased with their play without the puck and in front of Talbot after the misadventure against the Flames.
“Obviously in Calgary we felt our defense was kind of sloppy so we focused on protecting the middle and working from there,” said Derek Stepan, who was plus-three with three assists. “We wanted to make sure that if they got a shot, it was only one at a time, not a flurry.”
Stepan played only 14:07 on a night where the 12 Rangers forwards got between 9:40 (Derek Dorsett) and 19:56 (Marty St. Louis) of ice, with nine falling between 10:55 and 15:12. That was a function of the both the game and the four-line game plan that has always been favored by Vigneault.
“It was a great sign we were able to roll four lines and three [defense] pairs,” said McDonagh, who played a game-high 24:29. “Everybody was fresh and everybody bought into it.
“It was a real solid game for us, which is something we needed after the other night.”
Now it’s on to Vancouver for a game you bet has some additional meaning for Vigneault as his new team drives to clinch a playoff berth and his old team — and the Rangers’ old coach — stares into the abyss.