SHOW SOME START
Blueshirts come out with needed energy to bounce back
The Senators learned Tuesday night that you cannot manufacture desperation, you cannot buy it at the corner store or online. Even in the vast space of the worldwide web, there’s no app to create desperation.
You either have it or you don’t. And on this night, down 2-0 in the series, the Rangers had it and the Senators didn’t.
The end result was a 4-1 Rangers win in Game 3 at the Garden, cutting Ottawa’s series lead to 2-1 entering Thursday night’s Game 4.
But it was the way the Rangers won this game that has to give their fans hope, and rattle the Senators. The Rangers conducted an utter clinic in the first period, smothering the Senators with an intense onslaught from the start.
“The game was lost in the first period,’’ Senators coach Guy Boucher said. “They were ready, they were hungry, they were desperate and we didn’t match that at all. I wasn’t surprised with how hard they came out. I’ve been saying it for the past two days.’’
Indeed, he has. Boucher has said a lot this series, some of it rather eyeopening.
After the Senators took a 1-0 lead in the series last week, Boucher conceded his team played Game 1 with “fear,” and that “the players didn’t want to get swept in four” by the Rangers.
When Senators’ forward Alexandre Burrows was asked after Game 1 if his team played in “fear of being swept,” he said, “Oh for sure. You look at them, they’ve been so good for a number of years. Their window to win a Stanley Cup is right now. They have an opportunity right now to win the Cup.’’
Mind games initiated by Boucher? Maybe.
But this, too, smacks of a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts for the Senators, who told everybody who would listen the last two days how “lucky’’ they were to win Game 2, the 6-5 double-overtime victory on Saturday.
The Senators, even with the 2-0 lead entering Tuesday night, sounded like a team still very wary of the Rangers.
“Obviously they’re desperate, but at the same time, if we don’t win this game everything changes,’’ Senators winger Clarke MacArthur said at Tuesday’s morning skate. “You don’t really feel like you’re in the driver’s seat anymore.’’
So, leading 2-1 entering Thursday night’s Game 4 at the Garden with a chance to take a 3-1 lead into Ottawa for Saturday’s Game 5, the Senators don’t believe they’re still in control of the series?
“You can talk [about desperation] as much as you want, about urgency, but to create it superficially is very difficult,’’ Boucher said. “I think our players knew, but to know and to feel is two different things. We weren’t desperate and when they are desperate and you aren’t you have no chance.’’
Senators defenseman Dion Phaneuf said the Rangers’ early desperation “caused us to chase the game.’’
“We couldn’t find a way to push pack,’’ Phaneuf said. “We were lucky to get the last game and couldn’t get this one. Their level of intensity and push was much higher than ours. We’ve got to find a way to raise our level.’’
Before the game, Boucher said, “This is probably the toughest game we’ll have all year long. They’re going to be at their best, they’re desperate. We’re expecting this is probably our toughest game of the year.’’
What, then, does that make Thursday night’s Game 4 now that the Rangers have wrested the momentum away from the Senators?