If you are a lover of sporting fairy-tales, then the 2013-14 Rangers team is for you. After a tough seven game quarter final series against Metropolitan Division rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers, the Rangers won the opening game of the Eastern Conference semi-final match-up against a Pittsburgh Penguin team led by superstars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin – a Penguins squad expected to sweep the Rangers aside and move on to a semi-final series, probably against the Boston Bruins, a series between the undisputed best two teams in the East all regular season.
After a first-up road win, the Rangers fell into a 3-1 hole, producing a boo-worthy performance in Game 4 on home ice at Madison Square Garden. Pittsburgh were markedly the better team, and it seemed that they would be ousted from the Stanley Cup Playoffs in Game 5.
Then, disaster struck the team. Upon arriving in Pittsburgh for Game 5, star forward Martin St Louis, a trade deadline acquisition from Tampa Bay (in return for inspirational New York captain Ryan Callahan) after a fallout with team management, learned that his mother had died suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart-attack. France St Louis was just sixty-three.
Out of that great tragedy, the Rangers found a new gear. Where they had seemed listless, uninterested and ill-disciplined in Games 2, 3 and 4, now there was a reason to come together. By all accounts, St Louis had been a vocal leader since his arrival from Florida, a guy who everyone else on that team wants to play for. Such commodity is few and far between, even in the world of the National Hockey League.
St Louis bravely played Game 5 in Pittsburgh after heading home for a few days, firm in the belief that his mother would have wanted exactly that, and his presence in the line-up inspired the Rangers, who routed the Penguins 5-1. Suddenly there was a glimmer.
Then, after Game 6 – Mother’s Day in New York City – that glimmer became fully-fledged belief. With his father and sister in Madison Square Garden, St Louis scored the opening goal, seconds after the crowd had begun their “Marty! Marty!” chant, and the Rangers took the game, 3-1, on a Power Play goal from Derick Brassard.
Game 7 on Pittsburgh ice was the final exclamation mark in a dramatic and unexpected turnaround. Scarcely any Ranger fan, even the most ardent and passionate, could have foreseen a circumstance where the Blueshirts secured the series win, from 1-3 down.
It was, and will remain, a part of New York Ranger hockey lore. Brad Richards, undefeated in Game 7 contests, provided the game-winning Power Play marker. And so, the Rangers advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals and Montreal.
The Canadiens were favourites, despite being routed 7-2 in Montreal to open the series, but an injury to star goaltender Carey Price, who was controversially run into by New York’s Chris Kreider, changed the dynamic of the series. Rookie goalie Dustin Tokarski was tossed right into the snake pit, asked to step in for Montreal’s best player, and somehow lead the Canadiens to victory.
We must look past the galvanisation around St Louis to the other reasons why the Rangers, all but dead and buried after the Game Four disaster in Manhattan against Pittsburgh, are now readying themselves for an improbable and impressive shot at Lord Stanley.
Goaltender Henrik Lundqvist was nothing short of superb, stopping thirty-six in Game Seven against Pittsburgh, and aside from a shaky Game 5 in Montreal – where he hasn’t been good all season, and was pulled with the score 4-1, Canadiens – he was the steady backstop the Rangers have come to know and love.
As has so often been the case during his glittering career on Broadway, Lundqvist, an Olympic gold medallist with Sweden, put the team on his back and carried them across the line. His defence, led by Ryan McDonagh and Dan Girardi certainly improved, but Lundqvist made key saves in big situations, and will be the most vital cog in the Ranger machine in the Final against the dangerous Kings.
Offensively, the Rangers found a spark, and were finally able to convert on the Power Play, a feat which had eluded them, and had been a giant story throughout. The biggest players stepped up when it was absolutely necessary: Richards and St Louis scored giant goals in the Pittsburgh series, and Rick Nash, who had endured a scoring drought almost as long as that of the Rangers’ Power Play, found his scoring touch against Montreal. Not before time, say Ranger fans everywhere.
Speedsters Chris Kreider and Carl Hagelin were scoring again. The Penalty Kill brought about valuable short-handed goals. Derek Stepan, whose jaw was broken courtesy of a late Brandon Prust hit that led to New York’s Dan Carcillo being suspended for taking a swipe at an official, all part of a combustible Game 3. Really, it was a combustible, incendiary series.
The fourth line, led by Brian Boyle and Dominic Moore, provided big goals, Boyle the opener in Game 7 against the Penguins, and the inspirational Moore, whose wife Katie died of cancer in January 2013, the lone goal in the Eastern Conference Final-clinching Game 6. You can’t ask for more from these grinders, undervalued veterans who are the spark of this team.
The 2014 New York Rangers have the feel of a Team of Destiny, but then, so, in many ways, do their opponents. Whatever happens over the next few weeks, I’m proud of this team, of what they managed to accomplish after being on their knees. Anything after improbably beating Pittsburgh was a bonus – and what a ride it’s been!
So, there’s but one thing left for me to say: Let’s Go Rangers!
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