SIX APPEAL
Rangers hoping to close out Canadiens tonight in their first-round series at the Garden
MONTREAL − The Rangers’ primary task sounds simple but is anything but: Seal the deal Saturday in Game 6 at the Garden and avoid coming back here. What the Blueshirts also want to do as they head into this chance to advance to the second round for a date with Ottawa or Boston is put a stop to the carte blanche the Habs seemingly had Thursday in making contact with Henrik Lundqvist, since the officials certainly didn’t seem interested in providing any sort of deterrent during the Rangers’ Game 5 overtime win.
Montreal is pushing the limit as much as it can with bumping Lundqvist, and the Rangers feel their opponents are overstepping boundaries.
Brendan Smith, the deadline acquisition and pending unrestricted free agent who has shown considerable bite throughout this series, fought Andrew Shaw in the middle of the first period after Steve Ott fell on Lundqvist.
“It’s a message, but I’m not out there just trying to send a message,” Smith said Friday here at the Rangers’ hotel before the club flew back home. “The thing is we’re trying to take care of Hanky. He’s playing really well so they’re gonna try to get their bumps and we have to protect him. I think they kind of crossed the line a little bit there. Those things happen. Shaw’s a warrior and he tries to go to the front of the net, and I’ve got to make sure that that can’t happen. I think Ott was right in there.
“We obviously want to protect our goalie and we don’t want to see Henrik get hurt from guys jumping on him or falling on him. That’s a little bit on our ‘D’ and our low forwards to make sure that doesn’t happen. I guess it’s a message, but in most ways that just happens in hockey and sometimes you’ve just got to answer the bell.”
There hasn’t been anything as dramatic as the Chris Kreider-Carey Price accident from three years ago, but there certainly was enough for the officials to call a penalty, which they didn’t do Thursday but did on Tuesday when Rick Nash drove hard to the net in the first period like he’s done all series.
“I think we need either the refs making the calls to back them off or do your best to box them out within a shift,” Marc Staal said. “There’s a few shifts where they’re sitting on him, falling on him purposely, all that kind of stuff.”
A danger exists in the heat of the moment sometimes to retaliate, and many times the retaliation is what’s penalized and not the initial transgression. Smith admitted he’s wavered on that fine line as guys like Shaw and Brendan Gallagher have. “I even had some of the refs saying ‘You’re on the line right now,’ and I respect that because I know where I’m at,” he said. “Sometimes I find the calls are kind of inconsistent, so if the refs can talk to us that’s pretty good.”
Protect their goalie and protect their house, where they now have a one-game winning streak in the playoffs. The Rangers are 10-7 during the Lundqvist era in games in which they have a chance to clinch the series. “Our effort, compete (level) and desperation will be there,” Staal said.