Rangers are used to the battles with Carolina, and used to winning them
The Rangers' Adam Fox celebrates his game-winning goal against the Hurricanes during the third period of an NHL game in Raleigh, N.C., on Thursday. Credit: AP/Karl B DeBlaker
For all the talk about potential playoff previews, when it came to the home-and-home series the Rangers just completed against the Carolina Hurricanes, current Ranger and ex-Carolina forward Vincent Trocheck wasn’t about to read too much into it, not even after the Rangers managed to come from behind Thursday night in Raleigh, N.C., to beat the Metropolitan Division-leading Hurricanes, 2-1, at PNC Arena.
“We don't take anything from the wins in the regular season, because postseason is a completely different animal,’’ Trocheck said Thursday, after the Rangers had rallied to tie the game midway through the second period, took the lead early in the third, and then shut down the Hurricanes the rest of the way. “And you have to still have to win four-out-of-seven in the postseason.’’
For what it’s worth, the Rangers won three out of four in the regular season against the Hurricanes. And, of course, they won four out of seven in last season’s playoffs against Carolina, including winning the deciding Game 7 on the road.
That doesn’t mean they will have the advantage over Carolina if they should happen to face them in Round 1 of the playoffs in three weeks. But the Rangers have faced the Hurricanes a lot in the past 11 months, and they’ve learned a few things.
For one thing, according to Adam Fox, they can’t pay any attention to the shots on goal totals. Carolina outshot the Rangers, 13-3 in the first period Thursday, and led only 1-0, thanks to the brilliant goaltending of Igor Shesterkin. In the first two periods, they were outshot 25-11, and yet the score was 1-1 after Artemi Panarin’s second-period goal.
“You can't really judge how you're playing off the shot tracker,’’ said Fox, who scored the game-winning goal at 4:01 of the third period Thursday. “They're always throwing pucks to the net… It's kind of got to be a boring game [against Carolina]. You're not going to get three-on-twos, two-on-ones all over the ice. But you also can't give them up. And, [Thursday] we got big saves when we needed them.’’
With 10 games remaining in the regular season, beginning with Saturday’s visit to the Florida Panthers, the Rangers still have a chance to improve on their current third-place status in the Metro division and maybe earn home-ice advantage for the first round of the playoffs. But coach Gerard Gallant said earlier this week that he’s not worried about getting home ice, because he knows his team can win on the road.
The only thing Gallant wants from his team, he said, is to play well, try to win each individual game, and continue to develop chemistry between the new and returning forwards. In the meantime, a win over the Panthers would put them on the verge of clinching a playoff spot, while also helping their local rivals, the Islanders, get closer to one of their own.
The Panthers are third in the wild card race, behind the Islanders and Pittsburgh Penguins, and the Rangers’ magic number to clinch a spot is six points, meaning any combination of points gained by the Rangers or lost by Florida totaling six would officially put the Rangers into the postseason. If the Rangers should beat Florida in regulation, that would help the Islanders, and reduce their own magic number to two, with nine games to go.
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.
