FIT FOR KING
RALEIGH, N.C. — The New York Party Poopers.
The Rangers spoiled all the Hurricanes’ fun, disallowing another silly homeice victory celebration, which had become the talk of the league. Instead, the visiting Blueshirts were backstopped by a 43-save performance from Henrik Lundqvist and took a 2-1 victory Tuesday night, skating off the ice without incident.
“I don’t care as long as we win and they don’t get to do it,” Mika Zibanejad said about the Hurricanes’ nowfamous on-ice celebrations, which have included doing the limbo and pantomiming hitting a home run.
The revelry had inspired curmudgeonly Canadian broadcaster Don Cherry to call the Hurricanes “a bunch of jerks,” and the team has gone overboard with related marketing, selling “jerks” Tshirts and doing endless ingame segments on the scoreboard about the situation.
“I don’t mind it. I think I would like it if I was on that team and we got to celebrate with the fans,” Zibanejad said. “It’s different, no one else does anything like that. It’s cool. I don’t like it, I don’t hate it. It’s their thing, so let them run with it.
“As long as we come in here and we win and make sure that we don’t see it or hear about it while we’re here, I’m all good with that.”
At this point, the Rangers (26-25-8) are not giving up on anything, despite any shot at the playoffs remaining in the far distance and likely getting more bleak once some moves are made before Monday’s trade deadline. But in the locker room, the result was still thought of as a four-point game against a division rival, and the Hurricanes (31-23-6) took a tough hit to their own postseason aspirations despite outshooting the Blueshirts, 44-26.
“I don’t think the chase and the hunt for the playoffs is over by any means for us here in the locker room,” Zibanejad said. “People outside might say so, but that’s up to you guys and up to the rest of the people to think what we should do and what we should not. For us, we just take it game by game. It’s that simple. We can’t look ahead.”
If that is what they did, they would come to the stark reality that two key pieces, Kevin Hayes and Mats Zuccarello, are likely to be traded in the next few days. Other pieces are also possibilities to move, including the man who scored the game-winner Tuesday, Vlad Namestnikov, finishing a loose puck at 6:10 of the third period just two seconds after a Rangers power play had ended.
But from there, it was all Lundqvist. Getting just his second start in the past five games and declaring that he needed to be better, Lun- dqvist played his best game in weeks. And there had to be at least slight images of 2014 dancing in his head after he denied Justin Williams — that year’s Conn Smythe winner with the Kings when they beat the Rangers in the Stanley Cup final — with a classic stacked-pad save at the left post to keep the one-goal lead with 1:37 remaining.
“I had to improvise a little bit,” Lundqvist said. “It worked. It’s just a good feeling to win. That’s all I want to do.”
Of course that’s all the Rangers want to do, and that is exactly why general manager Jeff Gorton is planning to continue implementing this rebuilding before 3 p.m. Monday rolls around. But these are prideful athletes, and they weren’t too upset with being tied 1-1 after 40 minutes, trading goals from Jordan Martinook and Connor Brickley just 47 seconds apart midway through the second period after Carolina had held most of the play.
“I didn’t think we really did much well in the first two periods,” coach David Quinn said. “We survived, and [Lundqvist] was a big piece of it. Boy, he had a real good night.”
Good enough for a win, good enough to keep the optimism alive, and good enough to keep the Hurricanes’ goofy celebrations shelved for one night.
“I felt the things I changed a little bit worked for me,” Lundqvist said. “It was a good game.”