RANGERS RESPOND IN GAME 3
New York victorious on home ice
The Ottawa Senators looked like a bad act on Broadway on Tuesday night. Well, it’s a series now. The New York Rangers served notice they’re not going to go down without a fight in their Eastern Conference semifinal with a dominating 4-1 victory that made it look like the Senators weren’t ready for prime time under the bright lights at Madison Square Garden.
Suddenly, it’s the Senators feeling the heat as the momentum has moved squarely in the direction of the Rangers. Their outstanding effort cut Ottawa’s lead to 2-1 in the series, with Game 4 set for MSG on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. The result also means there will be a Game 5 at Canadian Tire Centre on Saturday at 3 p.m.
Henrik Lundqvist was better than he showed in 6-5 double overtime loss Saturday in Ottawa, with only Jean-Gabriel Pageau able to beat the Rangers goaltender. Beyond that, the Senators didn’t have a whole lot in the way of the chances.
“They were ready, they were hungry and they were desperate and we didn’t match that at all. That’s it,” said Senators coach Guy Boucher. “I wasn’t surprised by how they came out, we’ve been talking about it for two days now, and we talked about it with the players.
“Like I always say, you can talk about urgency as much as you want, but to create superficially is very difficult.”
Meanwhile, Senators netminder Craig Anderson, who saw his lifetime record — including playoffs — fall to 9-4-1 at MSG, wasn’t at his best and he didn’t have any help, either. Mats Zuccarello, Michael Grabner, Rick Nash and Oscar Lindberg did the scoring for the Rangers, who knew if they fell behind 3-0 in this series, it was essentially over.
“They had more (desperation) right from the start,” said Senators alternate captain Dion Phaneuf. “They found a way to push to a higher level and (our performance is) not acceptable, but we’ve got to move forward and we’ve definitely got to have much better push back, a much better start in the next game.”
How does that happen?
“If I had the answer, it wouldn’t happen,” Phaneuf added. “They started a lot more desperate than us. They continued to push, and they continued to push, and we couldn’t catch up. When you chase the game, especially against a really good team, it seems like you’re digging out the whole time. That’s what happened to us.”
To make matters worse, the Senators finished the night without winger Bobby Ryan and centre Zack Smith, who both departed the game with injuries. Ryan was left limping after he took a shot from teammate Erik Karlsson in the thigh in the third period, while Smith left the ice in the first period with an upper body injury after taking a hit from Tanner Glass.
By the end of the second period, this was ugly for Ottawa in a lot of ways. Pageau, who had four goals Saturday in Game 2, pulled the Senators to within 4-1 with 1:11 left. Only 24 seconds earlier, Lindberg’s first career playoff goal gave the Rangers a 4-0 lead.
The Rangers pulled out to a 3-0 lead on the strength of Nash’s third goal of the playoffs at 12:21 of the second. Breaking in on a 2-on-1 with Derek Stepan, Nash
took a pass and beat Anderson on the glove side. The Senators were caught up ice after Karlsson and Mark Stone collided to create the odd-man rush.
“They started better and that’s why we didn’t win,” said Karlsson. “Overall, it wasn’t a great performance by our team and that’s the way it is sometimes. We’re still up 2-1, we’re happy about that and we’re going to take the good parts of this game and try to figure out the stuff we weren’t doing good enough.”
After defending his play behind the net only 24 hours earlier, Anderson got caught in a bad spot on the second goal. He went to play a puck along the boards, backed off when he thought Ben Harpur would take it and then couldn’t get back to his net as Grabner picked up the loose puck to deposit in the open side at 13:24.
Throughout these playoffs, the Senators have talked ad nauseam about not allowing the opposition to set the tone in the first 10 minutes. Tuesday’s start didn’t bode well for Ottawa and Zuccarello opened the scoring at 5:31 when he took a feed from Mika Zibanejad in the slot, then fired it by Anderson on the stick side.
“There’s no excuse for us coming out the way we did,” said Kyle Turris. “We talked about it before, that there was going to be the best start to their game that we’ve seen, and it was going to be a tough one. That’s exactly what it was. We came out flat and we didn’t have an answer for it.”
They started a lot more desperate than us. They continued to push … and we couldn’t catch up.