Lundqvist back to old self while offense is sputtering
It has become such a common scene over the past few years — Henrik Lundqvist sitting there at his locker after a Rangers loss, his head in his hands, rubbing his face. He then looks up and does everything in his power to be as diplomatic as possible about the team in front of him that is just not on the same skill level.
“I think most things we did well enough, but it comes down to the last thing, and that’s putting the puck in the net,” Lundqvist said Thursday night in Chicago, after he was terrific again in making 33 saves while his team could only manage one goal — and one shot in all of the third period — en route to a 4-1 loss to the Blackhawks.
“Unfortunately,” Lundqvist said, “it’s been the case with most games this year with the losses.”
The 36-year-old Lundqvist signed up for this journey, and he knew it wasn’t going to be easy. It’s not going to be easy right now as this road trip continues after Friday’s off day with a three-game swing through California, beginning with Sunday after- noon’s match against the Kings.
The Rangers are still in the nascent stages of rebuilding, and part of that means they are going to be outclassed in talent on more nights than they’re not. But it sure felt like Lundqvist was rationalizing another game on Thursday when the team could not properly heed the direction of firstyear coach David Quinn.
They have shown only spurts of this increased focus on shooting the puck more and driving to the net. They have shown only spurts of skating hard and playing with a high pace. And, boy, how fleeting was the good feeling from that first regulation win of the season, a 5-2 victory over the sputtering Panthers on Tuesday night at the Garden?
“We try to score. We’re trying to work on that,” said Mika Zibanejad, who was a force in scoring twice and notching four points against Florida, but whose line with Chris Kreider and Mats Zuccarello pulled a complete ghostshow against the Blackhawks.
“We were hoping that the last game could maybe get us started on something here. ... There are certain areas we have to do better, and we didn’t do that enough.”
The slow start is understandable as the Rangers adjust to Quinn’s system that is a large philosophical jump from what former coach Alain Vigneault was teaching. But there has been no slow start for Lundqvist, giving the team a chance to win every night by posting a .920 save percentage and 2.61 goals-against average while starting eight of the team’s first 10 games.
He dealt with a slight neck issue a few days ago — which he said was not the result of Johnny Gaudreau’s inadvertent bump in Sunday’s loss to the Flames — and he came up holding his left elbow in the third period against the Blackhawks after former teammate Artem Anisimov tried to hack one through (and needed to be upheld as a no-goal only after an unnecessarily lengthy review).
But the way Lundqvist battles, he always seems to be on the receiving end of some punishment.
Yet the bigger punishment for the ultra-competitive Swede is dealing with losses that are piling up and have the 3-6-1 Blueshirts in 29th place in the 31-team league.
“He gives us a chance night in, night out,” Quinn said. “We’ve got to support him, we’ve got to bail him out. We’ve got to do our part.”