SUNRISE, Fla. – There is no doubt that the Eastern Conference-leading Rangers have championship aspirations. To that end, Chris Drury has a bit of advice for his teammates in the aftermath of a second straight shootout victory that was achieved despite surrendering a tying goal in the final 95 seconds of regulation time.
“We better learn to finish these games off, because the last time I checked there are no shootouts in the Stanley Cup playoffs,” the captain told The Post following the Blueshirts’ 4-3 victory here last night over the Panthers.
Wednesday night in Tampa, the Lightning forced OT with a Mark Recchi goal at 19:10 before Henrik Lundqvist prevailed in a 2-0 shootout. Last night, the Panthers tied the game on a David Booth goal off a late developing two-on-one at 18:27 before The King won the breakaway contest by 2-1.
“Giving up the tying goal twice in a row so late in the game concerns me,” Markus Naslund said, seconding Drury’s motion. “Good teams don’t put themselves in the position to be scored on like that, they make the right plays. It’s not a good sign to be scored on like we have been. We have to be better and smarter. We’re still learning.”
Still, the Rangers’ pupils are 17-7-2 as they return home for a rematch with the Panthers tomorrow afternoon. For the moment, Tom Renney believes that’s the bottom line, even as the head coach acknowledges that his team has much work to do.
“Again we were able to find ways to win,” Renney said after Naslund and Nikolai Zherdev were successful on the shootout for the second straight game, and Lundqvist made two saves after surrendering a goal in the top of the first. “As much as nobody wants to give us credit, I will.”But we still have to tidy up different areas of our game.”
They can start with the power play after going 0-for-5 while essentially killing their own advantages by playing “Ring Around the Rosie” with the puck, refusing to shoot from the point, reluctant to get a man in front.
Renney attempted to address the latter issue on a third-period power play by restoring Aaron Voros to one of the PP units. Voros, who scored at 7:04 of the third for a 3-2 lead, goes to the paint relentlessly.
“I’m going to have to look at that if other guys either can’t or are unwilling to do that job,” Renney said. “Other than putting Colton Orr out there, that’s the ultimate statement.”
In addition to improving the power play, the Rangers need to tidy up their discipline. After getting the first three PP’s of the match, the Blueshirts were down six straight times – three times within 2:56 of the second and three times within 2:22 of the third.
The Rangers were down two men for 1:47 midway through the third before the penalty-kill unit snuffed the Panthers and allowed the team to maintain the one-goal lead.
But they couldn’t make it hold up, burned late when the normally defensively-dependable Blair Betts unit was caught up ice and Redden was beaten badly at the blue line by Radek Dvorak.
They were burned, but not fatally, not with Lundqvist improving his record to 5-1 and the Rangers improving theirs to 6-1 in the shootout, which doesn’t exist once the playoffs begin.
Rangers 4 Panthers 3