SAVE! Capitals goalie Braden Holtby makes a glove save in front of Ryan Callahan during the Rangers’ 2-1 loss in Game 6 last night. (Neil Miller)
WASHINGTON — With the blood that dripped from John Mitchell’s nose came hope for the Rangers, hope that their dreary start could begin to turn around on the four-minute man-advantage headed their way.
Mitchell had been cut on a high stick from Jeff Halpern 12:05 into the second period of last night’s Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinal at the Verizon Center, and with the Rangers already down 2-0, they looked beyond sluggish.
Yet instead of coming out inspired, the Rangers continued to skate in mud, continued to get pushed off pucks, continued to get distinctly outworked by the Capitals.
They finished the man-advantage with three shots in four minutes, the sellout crowd stood and cheered in a sea of red, and the momentum buoyed the Capitals to a decisive 2-1 victory, staving off elimination and forcing a Game 7 on Saturday at the Garden.
“Sucked,” is how coach John Tortorella summarized it afterward. “It kills you. It sucked.”
On the night, the Rangers’ power play went 0-for-5 over a full 10 minutes of time. It was not entirely stagnant but never able to break through with the goal they so desperately needed.
“They work hard, they try to put a lot of pressure on us,” said Dan Girardi, who played 6:43 of his 27:45 on the man-advantage and finished the game with a team-high four shots on goal. “For the most part, when we have an opportunity to shoot, we have to. That creates the rebounds and we’re able to track down pucks and go from there.”
In Game 5 on Monday, it was a high-sticking double-minor that again created hope, and that time the Rangers converted. It came when the Capitals’ Joel Ward got a stick up into the face of Carl Hagelin, bloodying his mouth, and the result was Brad Richards tying the game with 7.6 left and Marc Staal getting the game winner in sudden death as the penalty carried over.
“They’ve been aggressive on our power play all series long,” Ryan Callahan said. “It’s something that we have to get better at, moving the puck.”
The first unit sent out with the critical man-advantage was Michael Del Zotto and Girardi at the points, with Callahan, Richards and Marian Gaborik up front. The three shots came from Callahan, Gaborik and Del Zotto, yet none really threatened goalie Braden Holtby, who finished with 30 saves.
“We need to get a power play goal there,” Callahan said. “It definitely would have helped us.”
Now, the Rangers have no option but to look forward to Game 7 rather than look behind them. And this particular four minutes, no matter how much it could come back to haunt them, is something they will desperately try to forget.
“We tried to get a goal on the power play but it didn’t happen,” Girardi said. “It’s the way it goes in a playoff series, you can’t let things like that get to us.”