There’s a reason “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing,” and “You are what your record says you are,” are coaches’ quotes that have more resonance than, oh, say, “We know what we did.”
That’s because the only tangible rewards in pro sports go to teams that win games, and win games often. The pursuit is not of perfection. The pursuit is of victory.
“I can’t explain how as a professional athlete everything rolls off your shoulders and goes in the right direction when you’re winning,” Brad Richards said yesterday after the Rangers worked in preparation for tonight’s match at Nassau Coliseum against the Islanders. “Let me tell you, it’s not about playing great hockey for 58 minutes, getting 60 shots and losing 2-1.
“It’s about making important plays at important times, about taking care of the details that decide games. We may not look great for 60 minutes, we may have breakdowns, but we’ve been making the important plays, and we’ve been winning.
“And the more we win, the more confidence that breeds. We’re not a cocky group and we’re not getting ahead of ourselves, but we are [9-3-3], and that means something.”
The Rangers go for their seventh straight victory tonight against the 4-7-3 Islanders, who have won just once in 10 games (1-6-3) since defeating the Rangers at the Coliseum on Oct. 15, but are trying as hard as they can to get a reasonably high draft choice in exchange for Evgeni Nabokov.
Yes, there is the shootout providing the guarantee of a winner in every NHL game that did not exist before 2005-06, but the fact is the Rangers have won as many as seven straight games only seven times in the 36 seasons since the 1974-75 club won eight in a row.
So this is something, even if not quite everything.
“You want to play your game, but it comes down to winning,” said Henrik Lundqvist. “Playing well is one thing, but playing well doesn’t give a team confidence. Winning does that, getting the two points every night does that.
“Friday night against Carolina, 1-1 after the second and we hadn’t been at our best, but winning those five straight gave us a lot of confidence going into the third. If we had lost five in a row there would have been a lot more pressure on us.”
Instead, the Rangers applied pressure against the Hurricanes and scored four times in the third for an emphatic 5-1 victory.
“Did we look great that night? No,” Richards asked and answered. “But we scored a big power play goal and then we took over the game.
“There have been nights where we could be better, nights where we should be better, but when you get right down to it, it’s about one thing, and that’s winning, and that’s something we’ve found ways to do.”
Paging Coach Lombardi. Paging Coach Parcells.
* The Rangers are 1-3 in their last four at the Coliseum, outscored 21-14, with the Islanders scoring four, six, five and six goals, respectively, dating back to start of last season. … Anton Stralman practiced with the Rangers, but his entry into the lineup doesn’t appear imminent. “He needs time,” said coach John Tortorella, who added the Rangers will start tonight with the lines that finished the Carolina game, meaning Richards will open between Sean Avery and Ruslan Fedotenko while Brian Boyle skates between Brandon Dubinsky and Ryan Callahan.