RANGERS’ MELTDOWN CONTINUES AS CAPS FORCE GAME 7

The Stanley Cup playoffs are always dramatic, but it’s been some time since the NHL has seen a series so full of soap-opera-like storylines as the current opening round affair between the New York Rangers and the Washington Capitals.  There were more plot twists on Sunday, as the resurgent Capitals beat the imploding Rangers 5-3 at Madison Square Garden to force a game 7 back in Washington, DC on Tuesday night.

The NHL suspended Rangers’ head coach John Tortorella after his water bottle throwing run in with a Caps fan during game 5, but his absence made little difference in the outcome.  With former Buffalo Sabres great and current New York assistant coach Jim Schoenfeld behind the bench, the Rangers were held in check by Washington’s 20 year old Russian goalie Simeon Varlamov.  On the other end of the ice, Rangers’ netminder Henrick Lundqvist continued to struggle for the second straight game.  After being yanked after allowing 4 goals on 14 shots in two periods in game 5, Lundqvist made another early exit on Sunday after allowing 5 goals on 20 shots.  The dichotomy between Lundqvist’s performance in the first four games of the series and the last two is staggering—through game four he stopped 141 of 149 shots as the Rangers took a 3-1 series lead.  In the past two games—both Capitals victories—he’s allowed 9 goals on 34 shots.

Washington got on the board first as Milan Jurcina scored his first goal of the playoffs at 7:09 assisted by Brooks Laich and Dave Steckel.  The Rangers quickly evened the score on Scott Gomez’s power play goal at 8:15 set up by Wade Redden and Sean Avery.  After that, it was all Washington for the next thirty minutes of play as they scored four unanswered goals.  Mike Green started the onslaught at 13:58 on the power play with assists to Alexander Semin and Tom Poti. Poti would ‘put the biscuit in the basket’ himself at 17:14 assisted by Dave Steckel and Boyd Gordon to give the Caps a 3-1 lead at the end of the first period.

Viktor Kozlov made the score 4-1 with his goal at 9:21 of the second period assisted by Poti and Sergei Federov.  Alex Ovechkin put the exclamation point on Washington’s offensive explosion as he tipped in Poti’s shot on the power play for his second goal of the playoffs to give the Caps a 5-1 lead at the end of two periods.  The Rangers managed to cut into the lead marginally in the third period, as Ryan Callahan scored at 4:21 assisted by Derek Morris and Scott Gomez to cut Washington’s lead to 5-2.  Marc Staal would add another meaningless goal for the Rangers with 6 seconds to play in the game to produce the final 5-3 score.

On Tuesday night Washington will try to become only the 21^st team in 230 chances to come back to win a NHL playoff series after falling behind 3-1.  They came back from a similar deficit last season to force a game seven, but ultimately fell short against the Philadelphia Flyers.  Game 6 hero Tom Poti said that experience last year should help his team this year:

"We have a little bit of experience knowing what we have to do. We still have to come out and play a perfect game. I don't really think about momentum."

Poti may minimize the importance of momentum, but it appears that everything is going the Caps way as this series wind down.  More significantly, the New York Rangers are finding new ways to beat themselves which doesn’t bode well for a decisive game on enemy ice.