Hockey

Is it possible? Um. Probably not. But ya boys can sure make things interesting if they can somehow win Saturday evening in Boston. Like Derick Brassard said, “We’re looking forward to going to Boston. The pressure is on them. Toronto came back from 3-1 and it’s possible. We just want to bring it to a seventh game and anything can happen.” Thoughts: 1) The events of the day were pretty bizarre, from the morning news that Brad Richards was being scratched to the obvious fallout that includes the almost virtual certainty that he will be bought out this summer, to the newly built fourth line … which, other than Kris Newbury’s needless and costly penalty, was pretty decent. 2) I don’t really have much to add about Richards. Kinda said it all yesterday. Kinda been saying it all season. Kinda started saying it on July 2, 2011. Just never though it could possibly happen this quickly, or that the Rangers would have this gift of an opportunity, thanks to Mr. Jacobs’ lockout, to get out from under that contract. Imagine seven more years?. Ooof. And I thought it was OK and kinda cool the way Tortorella got a lot off his chest about his relationship with Richards afterward. Wasn’t anything we didn’t know, but he probably needed to say it. And as I’ve said about Richards all season long, the guy cares. 3) Chris Kreider. That goal, and actually the way he played the entire game, after playing well between being promoted and taking that stick to the eye – the gash in his left eyebrow was pretty nasty, BTW – sure opened up the old can of worms about him playing here. I know he’s been bad both here and, reportedly, in Hartford this season. And whether he’s ready or not is debatable. But the kid is sure going to be a good hockey player, and the Rangers sure don’t have enough guys who have all the tools he has. He created some chances all night, and the goal was a beauty. Can’t wait to see him with a training camp under his belt. (Check out the photo gallery of his OT goal in the post below). 4) Rick Nash. Fought the puck a little bit, but made some plays, too. Robbed by Tuukka Rask a couple of times (needs to shoot more softly, like Hagelin). Great pass on the GWG. 5) Also great pass up ice to start the play by Ryan McDonagh, who had an enormous game again. That penalty he took? Pansification. But you have to like where he was when he committed it. Whatever you guys think of John Tortorella and his system, he wants his defensemen engaged in the offense, joining the play. McDonagh is their smartest defenseman, their best-skating D-man, and I don’t think his puck skills have scratched the surface yet. Would like to see more of him up ice. 6) So the Rangers’ PK gave up, for all intents and purposes (or as Jeremy Roenick might say, all intensive purposes) three goals. Yikes. But their vaunted power play, minus Richards, got a fairly enormous goal. Brian Boyle, playoff specialist. 7) Speaking of which, Taylor Pyatt became a player this postseason. If only he could skate better. Imagine if the Rangers were built properly at the top of the lineup so those guys could be the fourth line that Boston has. 8) Carl Hagelin stinks on those 2 mph backhanders. What a gift. Give the Rangers credit. They were being spanked when that puck crawled over the goal line as Tuukka Rask was sitting on his wallet. They got a break and used it. Good for them. 9) Brassard and Stepan, the No. 1 and 2 centers by default, were sure good in this game. Or most of it. Brassard provided another comic moment when he dropped the gloves with Brad Marchand, then had to go get them and put them back on as Marchand skated away. 10) Stepan made a No. 1 center play on Brian Boyle’s PPG, and picked big Z’s pocket on the wrap-around goal. Chara doesn’t look right to me. Then again, 7-footers on skates don’t look right. That was a t

The post-game Rangers’ room was a mixture of relief - they weren’t swept - and quiet confidence after scoring a power play goal and rallying from deficits of 2-0 and 3-2 to send this Eastern Conference series back to Boston for Saturday’s Game 5. “I think the atmosphere of the game was totally different because we had nothing to lose,” Derick Brassard said. “We just played tonight and all four lines and all the defensemen played solid. Hank (Henrik Lundqvist) was Hank again and gave us the chance to win. We just need to play that way all of the time.” Chris Kreider scored the winner at 7:03 of overtime, deflecting in Rick Nash’s pass. Kreider, elevated to the second line to start the game and then to spend ice time with Nash and Derek Stepan, wore the Lundqvist, err, Broadway Hat, all smiles. “How’s your face,” I asked him, no serious marks visible after he was whacked by Tyler Seguin’s stick blade in Game 3. “Fine,” Kreider replied, still all smiles. “How’s yours?” Here’s Tom Gulitti’s game story from The Record. And here’s my column on the coaching decisions John Tortorella made today. ====================================================== Follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/AGrossRecord Follow the Record Sports Staff at twitter.com/TheRecordSports

The Rangers will try to keep their season alive not with Brad Richards and Arron Asham in the lineup, but with Micheal Haley and Kris Newbury. Not with an injured Anton Stralman on defense, but aging veteran Roman Hamrlik, who has not played since April 1. Hamrlik for Stralman aside - Hamrlik, to me, is a better choice than Matt Gilroy here with Marc Staal unavailable - I don’t see how this is a better lineup even given Richards’ struggles. But maybe it’s not about the best lineup. Maybe it’s about a wake-up jolt to a Rangers’ team in danger of being on summer vacation in a few hours. One other notable lineup change: rookie Chris Kreider has been elevated to C Derick Brassard’s second line with Rick Nash on the right. “After the Game 3, everyone was down, everyone was pretty disappointed about the loss,” Brassard said. “We set our mind to make it 2-1 instead of 3-0. I know it looks hard to come back from 3-0. I think it’s possible. You take one game at a time. For us it’s do or die, an elimination game. Maybe, sometimes, when you’re thinking too much and gripping your stick and your back is against wall, sometimes you let yourself loose and maybe it’s a good thing for the team.” Here’s some history: The Rangers have trailed a best-of-seven series 3-0 10 times in franchise history. Six times, the Rangers have been swept. Three times, the Rangers have lost the series in five games. The other time, in the first round of the 1939 playoffs against the Bruins, the Rangers forced Game 7 before losing in triple overtime. The Rangers were last swept in the first round of the 2006 playoffs by the Devils. The last time they faced a 3-0 deficit was to the Penguins in 2008. The Rangers won Game 4 at home but lost the series in five. “The mindset of anything coming to end is nowhere on anyone’s radar,” D John Moore said. “All we need to do is win one game and get it back to Boston.” Keys to Game 4: 1. The small picture: The Rangers must do something only three teams in NHL history have accomplished by rallying from a 3-0 series deficit. So, while it’s totally clichéd, they really must only think of tonight’s game, even just starting with the first period, the first shift. Rallying from a 3-0 series deficit is a monumental task. Winning one game shouldn’t be. 2. Puck possession: Everything the Rangers want to accomplish stems from holding on to the puck and forcing the Bruins to play defense. It starts with winning faceoffs – the Rangers went just 21 of 55 (38 percent) in Game 3 – and continues by getting pucks in deep and then playing in the Bruins’ zone by establishing a forecheck. 3. The power play: Boy, this has become repetitive. The Rangers are now 2 for 38 on the power play in the postseason, without a goal in their last 21 attempts and 0 for 10 against the Bruins. The first trick is to keep the puck in the Bruins’ zone while on the man advantage. Then, don’t worry about being cute. Just shoot away and try to pound in a rebound. Ugly goals are just as good-looking as pretty ones “I think it’s got something to do with the whole game,” RW Mats Zuccarello said when asked whether going and failing on the power play saps momentum from the Rangers. “We don’t get into the flow, we don’t get into the rhythm and it’s just the power play and some of our five on five too. But we’ve got to win one game. Now is not the time to think in negative thoughts and see what’s wrong.” As for the lack of a consistent or effective forecheck in the series, D Ryan McDonagh said, ““You’ve got to give them some credit. They’ve got some big defensemen and they’re able to get back there and retrieve the puck. I thought at times we had the puck on our stick and maybe just got a little bit impatient. You see them, they’re pretty good at waiting for help, wai

Spring rings eternal, as well as some traditions of the season. If it's Spring, you can count on gardens blooming, graduations, and the Sharks playing for their lives in a playoff elimination game. After dropping Game 5 in dismal fashion on Thursday night, San Jose limps home with its season on the line, down 3-games-to-2 in their best of 7 game series with the Los Angeles Kings. San Jose failed to score at Staples Center for the second time in the series en route to a 3-0 loss to Los Angeles, and now find themselves in the precarious position of having to win the next two games or say goodbye to the season.

This feels like a metaphor for the game. Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports People have said that the postseason is an entirely different animal than the regular season. Whatever happens in the prior 82 games (or 48 for this season) is thrown out the window. The slate is cleared. And sometimes, the wimpy teams that you’ve toyed with previously suddenly turn into monsters that you can’t dominate. This is exactly what’s happening to the Chicago Blackhawks in their series with the Detroit Red Wings. For some reason, they’re being intimidated by a sudden emergence of strength, and they’ve found themselves on the verge of being eliminated for the third year in a row. They had such promise, such strength in the regular season, that they were sure to make it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final. The team you see playing now seems defeated, demoralized, mentally shaken by defeat. They’re regressing back to the terrible game that’s been so prevalent the past two years. In place of the team that set franchise and league records is one that consists of a virtually nonexistent power play, weak shooting, ignoring shots, bad cycling, bad passing, sloppy play, mistakes, giveaways, and terrible faceoffs. Thursday’s 2-0 loss seems as rock bottom as it gets for them. They’re also becoming undisciplined, as evidenced by Jonathan Toews taking three penalties in a row. This is what the Red Wings want: hot-headed, desperate guys who will make countless mistakes and become broken. The Blackhawks won’t make it past the end of May if they lose their heads and their focus. I will say this: if the Blackhawks continue to play with too much emotion and not enough thought, they don’t deserve to win the game or the series. If they straighten up and figure out how to actually play, they’ll have a chance. It’s all up to them to turn things in their favor.

Photos by Getty Images. The post Game 4 photo gallery: Chris Kreider’s game-winning goal appeared first on Rangers Report Blog.

The beast has risen. No, not Ryan Kesler. As far as I'm aware, he's still on a golf course somewhere in scenic British Columbia. The beast that made its first real appearance of the 2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs tonight was a collective one: the Los Angeles Kings. Despite ousting the St. Louis Blues in round one and notching two wins against San Jose to kick off the Western Conference Semifinals, the Kings hadn't quite resembled the puck-hounding, physically punishing juggernaut they comprised last spring. That is, until tonight. Perhaps it was head coach Darryl Sutter's shrewd decision-making that included spreading out the Kings' offense by moving Dustin Brown down to the third line, placing Dustin Penner alongside the struggling Mike Richards and Jeff Carter and frequently manufacturing what turned out to be the very favorable matchup of Anze Kopitar skating against Matt Irwin and Dan Boyle. Perhaps it was that the Sharks really did empty their tank at the Tank, eking out a pair of 2-1 wins that were far more impressive, and presumably exhausting, efforts by San Jose than the scoreboard indicated. Or perhaps the first five games of this series just represent the most likely course of events when two teams that have been dominant at home and terrible on the road all year collide. Whatever the reason, the defending champions looked the part on Thursday night at Staples Center for the first time in this series, bottling up the neutral zone, boasting a blistering forecheck and owning territorial play as if the calendar was still turned to May 2012. And when they finally took their foot off the gas after building a 2-0 third period lead on goals by Anze Kopitar and Slava Voynov, their Conn Smythe winning goaltender Jonathan Quick was there to deny quality opportunities by Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Joe Pavelski. Now the Sharks find themselves on the brink of elimination coming off easily their worst performance of the 2013 playoffs. But despite being taken out behind the woodshed for the first two periods of this one, there are positives they can draw heading into Game 6 (as if they have any other choice). Joe Thornton was tremendous once again, a man on a mission in the third period when he had a hand in generating four Sharks scoring chances, including two with Antti Niemi pulled for an extra attacker. Even while seeing a good deal of Anze Kopitar whenever Sutter failed to get him out against Irwin and Boyle, the Marc-Edouard Vlasic/Justin Braun pairing continued their strong postseason with another understated but excellent outing, the only tandem on the blueline to consistently neutralize the Kings and turn play the right way at even-strength. But with Martin Havlat still injured and Raffi Torres still suspended, the Sharks just don't have a bottom six they can trust. That's an issue in battles of attrition like the one this series has become. It's painfully ironic that forward depth, arguably the Sharks' biggest issue over the past two seasons, is having a hand in their undoing after the team appeared to have solved the problem by the 2013 trade deadline. But so it goes in the playoffs, where it's usually just as important to be lucky by managing to stay healthy and un-suspended as it is to be good. Of course there wasn't much that was lucky about the Kings' Game 5 win. San Jose was flat-out outplayed right up until the point when it was officially too late. If they can't find a way to both counter Los Angeles' forecheck and beat Jonathan Quick by Sunday night, a season that appeared to have the potential for a storybook ending just a couple of hours ago will instead turn into a familiar tale of heartbreak and defeat. FTF Three Stars 1st Star: Anze Kopitar2nd Star: Jonathan Quick3rd Star: Antti Niemi

Sharks on brink after 3-0 loss in L.A. Goals from Anze Kopitar, Slava Voynov and Jeff Carter provided Los Angeles with a 3-0 victory in Game 5 to put San Jose on the brink of elimination in the Western Conference semifinals. Voynov's fourth goal of the postseason 53 seconds into the final period put the Sharks in desperation mode, but Los Angeles goalie Jonathan Quick stopped all 24 shots en route to this second shutout of the series, third of the postseason and seventh career in the playoffs. San Jose has scored only one power-play goal in 19 attempts on the road in the playoffs. Los Angeles' Trevor Lewis won an offensive-zone draw from Joe Thornton to set up Voynov, whose blast from the right circle sailed by Sharks goalie Antti Niemi, who appeared to be screened by teammates Thornton and Brad Stuart three seconds after a Kings power play expired. The Kings scored the lone goal of the opening 40 minutes, and the Sharks were probably lucky to even be that close considering Los Angeles completely dictated play for most of first two periods. The Sharks started strong, earned an early first-period power play that yielded two shots after Carter boarded San Jose defenseman Dan Boyle, but the second half of the scoreless period belonged to the hosts. Niemi came up big late with a right-pad save on Williams' shot from the slot one-half minute after Voynov missed the net on an uncontested slap shot from the very spot in the right circle from which he scored in Game 1.

NEW YORK — Unlike some gentlemen who share his line of work, goalie Tuukka Rask has never been one to make excuses, or rationalize, or otherwise try to duck blame that comes his way.When he does something bad, he is his own most withering critic.“It was just awful,” said Rask of his goaltending error-for-the-ages last night that sparked new life in the New York Rangers, who went on to a 4-3 overtime victory, averting a series sweep and forcing a Game 5 tomorrow back in Boston.