Rangers will finish 3rd in Metro after wins by Devils and Hurricanes
Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin skates to the net during a break in action in the second period of a game against the Sabres at Madison Square Garden on Monday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The Rangers have been resigned to their Metropolitan Division fate for weeks now. Even though they woke up Tuesday still alive for second place in the division — or even first — with one game remaining in the regular season, the Blueshirts weren’t counting on it.
Good thing, because what had seemed likely for most of the last couple of months of the season finally became official Tuesday night when wins by the Metropolitan Division leaders, Carolina and second-place New Jersey, finally locked the Rangers into third place in the division, meaning they will open on the road when the playoffs begin next week.
Whether the road means Newark, N.J., or Raleigh, N.C., remains to be determined. The Rangers will face whoever finishes second in the division in the first round of the playoffs. At the moment, that would be the Devils, who beat Buffalo 6-2 Tuesday and have 110 points with one game remaining. Carolina, which beat Detroit 4-1 Tuesday, has 111.
Both teams close out the regular season on Thursday on the road. The Devils will be in Washington playing against the Capitals, who have already been eliminated; Carolina will be at Florida.
The Rangers also finish the season Thursday, with a home game against Toronto. They began Tuesday with a chance — albeit a slim one — to improve on their third place position in the division standings if the Devils or Hurricanes would have lost in regulation time Tuesday night.
The Rangers’ 3-2 shootout loss Monday to Buffalo had earned them a point that gave them 107 after 81 games, one behind the Devils (108) and two behind Carolina (109). Had both the Hurricanes and Devils lost both their remaining games in regulation — and the Rangers won their final game against Toronto in regulation — the Rangers would have leapfrogged the Devils into a first-place tie with Carolina. And they would have won the division based on the first tiebreaker, wins in regulation time (not including overtime or shootout wins).
But the Rangers were well aware after their loss Monday that moving up in the standings was unlikely. And they were able to rationalize that starting the playoffs on the road was OK.
“You want to try to win, and get home ice, and open up [the playoffs] in front of the (home) fans,’’ defenseman Adam Fox said. “But I think once you’re there, you want to win games anyway. You want to win road games, too. So I don’t think we’re too concerned with that.’’
“If we want to win the Stanley Cup, we have to beat anybody, anywhere,’’ center Filip Chytil added. “So, it’s not up to us right now, so we just have to focus and win the games.’’
With a one-point lead, the Hurricanes will clinch the division if they beat Florida. For the Devils to overtake the Hurricanes and win the division, they need to beat Washington and hope Carolina loses to Florida. In the event Carolina loses in overtime or a shootout and the Devils win, the teams would be tied. In that case, the Devils would win the division because they would own the regulation wins tiebreaker.
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
