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New York Rangers Learned Nothing From Game 2 Debacle, Season On The Line

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Kim Klement - USA Today Sports

Kim Klement – USA Today Sports

The New York Rangers got away with spotting the Washington Capitals a 3-1 series lead in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. They will not, I repeat, not get away with it against the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Since their dominant Game 1 2-1 victory, in which the Rangers arguably played their best game of the playoffs, their last two games have been their worst. Yes, Tampa Bay is a team loaded with snipers and opportunistic goal scorers, but it doesn’t make it any less acceptable for the Rangers, a team whose foundation is built on goaltending and defense, to allow six goals in back-to-back games. When this happens, they simply cannot expect the offense to break out again as it did in their 6-5 overtime loss in Game 3.

Rangers captain Ryan McDonagh essentially called out his team after a 6-2 Game 2 loss in which everything went wrong. They needed to stop taking mindless penalties, and they needed to be more responsible in all three zones, especially the defensive zone. The reason they can’t take penalties is simple: the Lightning’s power play is on fire right now, and the Rangers simply don’t have an answer for their scoring depth.

So, you’d think the Rangers, a team that has bounced back from tough defeats time and time again, would learn from their mistakes and come out with a dominant Game 3 performance, right? Wrong.

The defense was even worse. It couldn’t protect an early 2-0 lead. Marc Staal and Dan Girardi looked lost. Dan Boyle caused yet another fatal turnover, leading to Tampa’s first goal. McDonagh didn’t do enough to back up his tirade, despite tying the game at four with an early third period power play goal. And Henrik Lundqvist, who has been left out to dry on the majority of the 12 goals scored by Tampa Bay the last two games, inexcusably allowed the overtime winner by Nikita Kucherov on a soft unscreened wrist shot from 27 feet away.

And let’s not get started with Rick Nash and Martin St. Louis.

The bottom line is their season is on the line Friday. Game 4 is an absolute must-win. The Rangers need to get back to basics, and not allow the game to become a track meet. They simply can’t match the Lightning’s scoring depth for 60 minutes, so it is imperative to not only stay out of the penalty box, but to get back to the defensive blueprint that got them a Game 1 victory that was much more lopsided than the final score indicated.

If they don’t, it is extremely difficult for even the most optimistic fan to see the Rangers coming back from another 3-1 series deficit. The Lightning are simply too good a team to allow it to happen.

Matt Stillwell is a New York Rangers contributor for www.rantsports.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattNYR12!

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