In need of a King
Rangers should pray Lundqvist is his best if they hope to Price, Habs.
THE WRITER was trying to find the correct words to describe Henrik Lundqvist’s season while framing a question about the goaltender’s confidence heading into the 11th playoff tournament of his career.
“Not really your best,” represented the initial attempt.
“Different,” Lundqvist said. “It was different.”
It was so different. This season of false starts, pucks going in that never had before, a midseason four-game benching and a lateseason injury added up to a peasant’s .918 five-on-five save percentage, ranking him 15th among the league’s 17 netminders with 2,500 minutes and 27th of the 36 who played 1,500 minutes.
“Yeah,” said the King, who did not need to hear the numbers to reinforce the experience of this season. “A different year, for sure.”
But it will be no different for the Rangers and for Lundqvist as they prepare to take on the Canadiens in the conference quarterfinals that commence with Wednesday’s Game 1 in Montreal. The Blueshirts will need Lundqvist to be at his best — not his 35-year-old best — over the course of this series in order to have a chance to knock off the Habs and the mighty Carey Price, let alone win the Stanley Cup.
And when asked if he felt the same confidence now as he did entering the playoffs in 2012, off a Vezina-winning season, or in 2014 when he and the Blueshirts went to the Cup final, Lundqvist had two words that he repeated. “I do,” he told The Post. “I do.” Lundqvist has owned up to this season at every opportunity, even if he declined all implied offers to self-flagellate following a few of his most, uh, different performances. Instead, the goaltender insisted over and over again that he wasn’t too far off.
Now, Lundqvist readily admits that not being too far off won’t even come close to cutting. Indeed, the King said Monday he understands that the “pretty good” that he felt over his last couple of games won’t cut it, either.
“I felt pretty good, but I also know going into this week that pretty good is not going to be good enough,” he said. “I think for me and everyone in this room, we need to raise our level to our absolute best to have a chance to beat this team.”
Let’s get this out of the way right now. Lundqvist has failed to beat Price over their last eight regular-season confrontations, going 0-7-1 since the start of 2012-13 through which he has a 3.22 GAA and .886 save percentage while the Montreal netminder has gone 1.29/.955.
But the one and only time they have met in the playoffs, in Game 1 of the 2014 conference finals when Price lasted just 40 minutes before bowing out for the series with a knee injury sustained in that goalmouth collision with Chris Kreider, Lundqvist and the Blueshirts came out on top in a six-game victory ultimately achieved against neophyte netminder Dustin Tokarski.
Remember, too, that the Rangers were fueled by emotions heading into that series after overcoming a 3-1 series deficit to beat the Penguins in the immediate aftermath of the death of Martin St. Louis’ mom. Indeed, the Blueshirts attended the fu- neral for France St. Louis in Montreal on the first off-day between Games 1 and 2, in both of which Lundqvist shined.
That cannot be reenacted. This is not that.
This promises to be the goaltending showdown 2014 could not be after Price went down. As far as the Rangers are concerned, it had better be, because they are going to need Lundqvist to be at the top of his game in order to match Price, who has been waiting for this for three years.
The Rangers are going to need Lundqvist to be their best player, as he has been in nine of the 10 series the club has won since 2007, the lone exception being the five-game opening-round victory over the Devils in 2008 in which Sean Avery, Jaromir Jagr or Scott Gomez owned that distinction.
And they are going to need Lundqvist to reach peak form after a season that was different.
“Technically, I feel the same as I did any year,” said The King. “As far as comparing my mental state from two years ago or four years ago, I can’t do that. I don’t think about it that way.
“All I can say is that I feel good. And I feel confident I can and will be at my best. I do.”