King for a day
Lundqvist flashes form Blueshirts will need
FOR the last 11 seasons, the Rangers have gone where Henrik Lundqvist has taken them. It will be no different this year.
But here we are, almost onethird into 2016-17 following a 4-2 victory over the Hurricanes at the Garden on Saturday afternoon in which the Blueshirts spent the first 29 minutes committing felonies against hockey aesthetics while being outshot 23-4, and the King’s game hasn’t quite been where it is needed for his team to make noise come spring.
It isn’t as if Lundqvist’s game has broken down. But there are just these shots that seem to go in almost out of nowhere — the 100-foot bouncer in Buffalo on Thursday, for example — when they wouldn’t have a year or two or seven ago. Or maybe they would have, given the Swede’s track record of building his game out of the gate and peaking over seasons’ second halves and in the playoffs, with last year a notable exception to the rule.
The Rangers still haven’t won a game in which they have scored two or fewer goals, even unable to hold a 2-1 third-period lead in this one for more than 32 seconds after they had earned it, Lundqvist beaten on a Victor Rask low dart from 50 feet away at 6:26. It seemed the kind of shot the goaltender would stop when at the top of his game.
Which Lundqvist is not. Not always. Not yet. Not with a .918 five-on-five save percentage that is not only 15th in the NHL and markedly below last season’s .934 (that was recorded in the face of perpetually criminally negligent defensive zone work) but well below the composite .931 he has posted since 2009-10, which is the best in the league among goaltenders who have played at least 350 games.
And yes, it is true the Rangers allow the second-most five-on- five shots in the league per game (24.5), but that doesn’t quite explain the ones that are getting away … or getting through.
What does? Lundqvist has said it before and he said it again after preserving the victory the Blueshirts ultimately gained on a pair of goals from Chris Kreider at 12:25 and 17:11 that represented the Boston College product’s second and third scores in his last 17 games.
“Focus,” is what he said. “Focus.”
“That’s everything for me,” Lundqvist told The Post. “My game is all about focus. If I were a goalie who went down to my knees and used my size, it would be more about technique. But for me, it’s much more about my reads and my decisions.
“When I make a misread, I’m in trouble. It’s tricky with your mind not to be ahead of the play and to stay in the moment, but that’s the key for me.”
Again, it is critical to state Lundqvist’s game has not fallen apart. Critical to state he and his contract are not dooming the Rangers. And also critical to remind potential bridge-jumpers and scapegoat hunters Lundqvist has been through stretches like this before.
Indeed, this is reminiscent of 2013-14, Alain Vigneault’s first season behind the New York bench, in which Lundqvist struggled through the first three months of the year. Through Jan. 6 — and when he was just 31, by the way — the King recorded a positively plebeian .906 save percentage and a 2.78 goals-against average while going 12-16-3. Indeed, for the first and only time of his career, Lundqvist was a healthy backup for three straight games (to Cam Talbot) late that December.
But thereafter … well, Lundqvist kicked it into gear the rest of the way, going .934, 1.96 and 218-2, beginning with a sterling third-period performance that Jan. 8 in Chicago. And with the goaltender on top of his game, the Rangers went to the Cup final.
Or maybe he just put it all into focus.
The takeaway from this one is more how the Rangers salvaged this game with a strong third-period push both to take the lead on Michael Grabner’s 2-1 goal at 5:54 and then to preserve the edge after Kreider struck for the first time.
“It’s very important for me and for the team to close out tight games like this,” Lundqvist said after the Rangers’ fourth victory (4-4-1) in their last nine games. “Personally, and as a team, you get confidence from that.
“I do feel confident. There are a lot of parts of my game that I’m really happy with. It’s just that focus, I talked about. It’s difficult to explain how I get it, but I know how. I’ve done it before.”
For 11 seasons.