LOS ANGELES — Not even the truest believers in analytics account for moral victories.
So if that’s what the Rangers got — and more to the point, if that’s what the Rangers were seeking — in Game 4 at the Garden on Wednesday, then they should have saved everyone the trouble of the flight back out west that followed the 2-1 sweep-saving victory.
For knowing the competitive mentality of Henrik Lundqvist, who has burnished his résumé as a big-game goaltender throughout this tournament, Lundqvist won’t be any less sick seeing the Cup awarded to the Kings following Friday’s Game 5 than he would have been back at home on Wednesday.
Not in our house is what Lundqvist essentially said in making 40 saves in Game 4.
Not in our house is what Marc Staal essentially pledged on Tuesday’s off day that followed the Game 3 shutout defeat.
Not in your house, either is what Lundqvist and Staal and every one of these Rangers should be vowing in advance of Game 5.
One is not enough.
The 1942 Maple Leafs not only are the lone team in NHL history to overcome a 3-0 deficit in the Stanley Cup finals, they are the only team in playoff history to win Game 5 on the road after averting a sweep at home with a Game 4 victory.
But past is not necessarily prelude to the future. The past didn’t have Lundqvist — 11-2 with a 1.30 GAA and .959 save percentage in 13 potential elimination games over the past three tournaments — in nets.
I read the Rangers’ dejection on Tuesday’s off day not as a sign of surrender, but of bewilderment. Their players did not believe they deserved to be in a 3-0 hole. Give them truth serum, hook them up to a lie detector, and every single Blueshirt would pass by answering “Yes,” to the question whether the Rangers are as good as the Kings.
Again, from the noted philosopher Costanza: It’s not a lie if you believe it.
And the Rangers believe it, even down by two games with two of the potential remaining three games set for L.A.
In this series, through much of this tournament and over most of the season, the Rangers have been a better team on the road than at the Garden. They had the puck more and created more scoring chances in the first two defeats in L.A. than in splitting the next two in New York. The Blueshirts forced more errors on the road, even if they were forced out of their comfort zone for multiple shifts at a time in each of the first two when the Kings mounted their rallies from two goals down.
There rarely has been a harsher assessment of an opponent than the one L.A.’s outstanding Conn Smythe-contending defenseman Drew Doughty volunteered about the Sharks, who blew a 3-0 series lead to lose in seven to the Kings in the first round, when he said: “Once we won that first game … we kind of had a feeling we were going to come back and win. … You could see it in their eyes and their team and their captains and their leaders that they were worried about us coming back.”
That doubt is absent in the eyes of the Kings and their leaders — who, after all, won the Cup two years ago in six games against New Jersey following losses in Games 4 and 5 after having built a 3-0 series lead. But not only are these Rangers more formidable than those Devils, there is no doubt at all in the whites of the Blueshirts’ eyes.
Still, in order to force a Game 6 at home on Monday, the Rangers will have to be better than they’ve been so far. They must find the way to negate the speed of stealth winger Tanner Pearson, who flew from under the radar to dominate the final 30 minutes of Game 4. They need to find the way to hem in the Anze Kopitar-Marian Gaborik-Dustin Brown unit that had the puck nearly all night in establishing off-the-chart possession numbers against the game Derek Stepan-Rick Nash-Carl Hagelin unit.
Coach Alain Vigneault’s line-juggling reaped its victorious reward, but the Rangers rarely had the puck, so it is difficult to assume cause-and-effect. The Blueshirts must put the puck below the goal line, get in on the forecheck and make life difficult for the defense and Jonathan Quick, and they must keep LA out of Lundqvist’s face in order to bring this series back to New York.
The Rangers also might want to bring a little snow with them to the rink. You know, in case Lundqvist needs it.
That’s the moral of this story.