RANGERS OUST PENS
OT loss ends series, season, perhaps an era
NEW YORK — Just that quickly, it was over. The game. The series. The season. And perhaps, depending on how upper management reacts to the Penguins’ quickest exit from the playoffs since 2007, an era.
Carl Hagelin threw a shot past Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury at 10:52 of overtime to give the New York Rangers a 2-1 victory Friday night at Madison Square Garden in Game 5 of their Eastern Conference opening-round playoff series.
That gave New York a 4-1 victory in the series and put it into a Round 2 matchup with the survivor of the Washington-New York Islanders series, while launching the Penguins into what could be another tumultuous offseason.
There’s no indication of how ownership will respond to the Penguins lasting only five games in the postseason for the first time since 2007, but this presumably is not what Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle had in mind a year ago, when general manager Ray Shero and coach Dan Bylsma were fired after five consecutive playoff disappointments.
Still, even though the owners rarely share their thoughts publicly, there’s no evidence that either general manager Jim Rutherford or coach Mike Johnston is in danger of losing his job. That doesn’t mean there won’t be considerable roster turnover.
The loss was the Penguins’ seventh in a row in overtime playoff games, and every one of their defeats in this series came by the same score.
“It’s disappointing,” goalie Marc-Andre Fleury said. “All close games, all one-goal games.”
Game 5 was the Penguins’ most focused, desperate performance of the series — “We played the way we wanted to play,” winger Nick Spaling said — but they ultimately were done in by their inability to score, a recurring problem in recent months.
One major factor in their offensive struggles: Center Evgeni Malkin did not record a point in the series.
The Penguins manufactured just eight goals in five games — half in their 4-3 victory in Game 2 — and put only one of 38 shots past Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist in Game 5.
“We had a lot of scoring chances, but they did a good job [defensively],” Penguins center Maxim Lapierre said.
The defeat overshadowed another stellar effort by Fleury, who effectively has shed his reputation for suffering untimely meltdowns in high-stakes games. He was the Penguins’ best player in the series, as he had been in the regular season.
“Our goaltender was unbelievable,” Lapierre said.
New York opened the scoring for the fourth time in the series, when Derek Stepan punched the rebound of a Dan Boyle shot past Fleury from the front lip of the crease on a power play at 4:23 of the first period.
The Penguins were unable to get anything past Lundqvist until 17:23 of the second period, when the puck was knocked across the goal line by … Lundqvist.
Spaling got credit for the goal, his first of the series, because he was the last Penguins player to touch the puck before Lundqvist nudged it into the net with his left skate. It proved to be the final goal the Penguins will score until fall.
“As a hockey player, you’re never ready to go back home in the summer,” Lapierre said. “It’s tough right now.”