Rangers, Caps know what to do in Game 7
Another close battle expected tonight at MSG
Brad Richards is getting ready for the Rangers’ latest Game 7 the same way the star forward did years ago when he was a kid with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Well, almost the same. “I’m probably a little more nervous the older I get because I was kind of young and stupid at that time,” the 32-year-old Richards said Friday. “It’s a fun day. You cherish the chances you get to be in them. You treat it like a great day in your life. You don’t get many chances to do something like that at Madison Square Garden; Game 7 on a Saturday night. Where else would you want to be?” Hard to argue. The Rangers are 4-3 at home in the first two rounds of the playoffs against Ottawa and Washington, but it was on the familiar Garden ice that New York knocked out the Senators in Game 7 to set up the Eastern Conference semifinal series with the Capitals.
The Rangers know that a season in which they finished first in the East will have a hollow feeling if they don’t win tonight and advance to face Atlantic Division-rival New Jersey in the conference final.
“It’s one game now,” Rangers captain Ryan Callahan said. “It doesn’t matter really what happened in the rest of the series and what happened last game. It comes down to one game that you have to win.
“There is no other group I would rather be doing this with.”
The Rangers outlasted Ottawa 2-1 in the deciding game late last month, and they say they’re approaching this one the same way, with perhaps a few wrinkles.
Rangers coach John Tortorella had players who had been in previous Game 7s talk to the club before the final game of the first round. While one game doesn’t make someone a grizzled veteran of the greatest pressure on the biggest stage, it does give players an idea of what to expect.
“I don’t think anybody has to speak (today),” Tortorella said Friday after practice that followed a day off at the start of a two-day break following Washington’s Game 6 win. “I know Game 7 isn’t just a game, but we don’t change how we do things.
“As we’ve done before, we go about our business. It’s always good to have the experience of it. But every time we go into our building I think how we approach it is not going to be different. We are ready to play and all you have to be ready for in Game 7 is to be ready to play. Let’s not get convoluted here. We will be ready to play.”
It doesn’t get much closer than this. Through six games, the seventhseeded Capitals and the Rangers have alternated wins and losses, and have been tied or within one goal 90 per cent of the time.
The club that has scored first has won every game, and since New York’s 3-1 victory in the opener, the next five games have been decided by one goal — including two that went to overtime.
“I would say it’s a different mindset,” Capitals forward Nicklas Backstrom said of a road Game 7.
“We don’t have the pressure on us. They’re the No. 1 seed and the favourite. We just have to throw everything we’ve got at them, and hopefully get the W.”
It is hardly a stretch to figure that the Caps and Rangers will stage another nail-biter — one that might need extra time that could rival New York’s tripleovertime win at Washington in Game 3. The Rangers hold a 13-12 edge in goals, and both goalies are expected to be back on top of their games again. Henrik Lundqvist might have an advantage over Washington’s 22-year-old Braden Holtby, whose fiancee gave birth to a boy Thursday.
“It was planned to be the least amount of a distraction to the team as possible,” Holtby said. “It was a great day. Mom and baby are doing great, but now the focus is on hockey.”
The Capitals have been through this before, too, as they took out the defending Stanley Cup-champion Bruins in Game 7 in Boston in the first round.
“We know what we have to do,” Backstrom said. “If we can win in Boston, we can do it up at Madison (Square Garden), too. We’re looking forward to it.”