Applying the horses for courses reference, the Rangers have been nags against Montreal’s thoroughbreds, not only losing three straight in regulation this year, but five straight in regulation going back to the middle of last year.
“The last couple of days I’ve been thinking about our games, and I just don’t think we’ve played very well against them,” Brian Boyle said of the Canadiens, who will be at the Garden tonight. “They’re a very skilled team that moves the puck up the ice quickly and have been so opportunistic that our mistakes always come back to bite us.
“We have to play a very stingy game and make them work and play in their own end. And we have to stay disciplined. It seems like we’re in the box way too much against them, which is something we just can’t afford against anybody, really, but their power play is too good for us to be able to get away with too much.”
Speaking of which, unless a forward falls ill or over the curb crossing the street on his way to the match, Sean Avery’s three penalties against the Islanders on Tuesday will cost him a spot in the lineup. Wojtek Wolski will return after his first time as a Ranger healthy scratch.
The Canadiens, who have outscored the Rangers 7-3 this season and 16-4 over the last five matches, are in sixth place. The Habs held a five-point lead over the Blueshirts before picking up their game in hand last night in Tampa Bay.
“I don’t think we’ve been as physical against them as we need to be, but frankly, I don’t think we’ve played too well against them,” said Brandon Dubinsky, whose team is seeking its first three-game winning streak in over two months (Jan. 5-8.) “We always seem to fall behind against them, and then we make mistakes and wind up chasing them.”
The last two games, the 3-2 shootout victory in San Jose preceding the 6-2 Garden victory against the Islanders, have spotlighted a revived Boyle-Brandon Prust-Ruslan Fedotenko unit, with all three components seeming to regain a measure of health and a second wind.
“I think we’ve gotten back to the way we played during the first half,” said Boyle. “Prustie, you know how that kid just plays through everything, and Feds has been strong and on top of it, winning his battles.
Boyle is one off the team lead with 20 goals, but has scored only once in the last 13 games and twice in the last 19. As he himself volunteered, it’s when he began to think of himself as a goal-scorer that he not only stopped scoring goals but misplaced the other parts of his game.
“When I was scoring, I wanted to get a goal in every game, which is great, but I lost my mindset of how I need to play.”