Rangers set to take shot at ‘big prize’
WASHINGTON — Only three games remain for the Rangers in the tiresome regular season, just one week left until the puck drops on the playoffs, and now all eyes are excitedly taking aim at Lord Stanley’s Cup.
Slates become clean after Sunday’s season finale, and of course the Rangers believe they’re capable of making a run, because belief is where it all begins.
“We set a goal going into this year that we want to make the playoffs, and when we’re in it we want to go for the big prize. I think we all believe we can do it,” Henrik Lundqvist said after Tuesday’s practice. “I think we have the parts, the skill. Now it’s about making everything work at the same time and playing our absolute best. We’re gonna need it. First round, there’s not gonna be any easy games obviously. We need 20, 22 guys to play their absolute best, and if we do that I believe we can do it.” GETTY
The road likely first goes through Montreal. The Canadiens clinched the Atlantic Division on Monday night, and the only thing keeping the Rangers from being locked into a rematch of the 2014 Eastern Conference final was a highly unlikely tiebreak scenario with the Blue Jackets, one that could have been erased if Columbus earned at least one point Tuesday night. Instead, Columbus lost, 4-1, to the Penguins.
A matchup with Montreal would put the Rangers on the seemingly easier side of the Eastern Conference bracket — although they did go 0-2-1 against Montreal this season — and call back all the drama of that six-game series from three years ago, beginning with Chris Kreider’s Game 1 collision with Carey Price that sidelined Montreal’s star netminder for the rest of the series. Also, Derek Stepan had his jaw broken by former teammate Brandon Prust in the series, which the Rangers won to reach the Cup Final for the first time since 1994.