NEWARK – The Rangers’ season of high expectations and high hopes is over after they fell to the speedy Devils, 4-0, Monday night in Game 7 of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Michael McLeod, Tomas Tatar, Erik Haula and Jesper Bratt scored for New Jersey and Akira Schmid, whose status as starter was shaky going into the game, shined in goal for the Devs at the Prudential Center, notching his second shutout of the series.
The Devils move on to play the Carolina Hurricanes in the second round beginning Wednesday.
Following a terrific run to the Eastern Conference Finals last season, the Rangers went all-in before the trade deadline, dealing for win-now skill players in Vladimir Tarasenko and Patrick Kane. But their season is ending much sooner than anyone in blue wanted and now they could face an off-season of hard questions.
This is the first time in three tries that the Devils have beaten the Rangers in a Game 7 in a playoff series. The Rangers, however, have still won four of the seven playoff series they’ve played against the Devils all time.
The Rangers fell to 6-2 in elimination games dating back to last season.
Here are some takeaways…
– The Devils took a 1-0 lead with a shorthanded goal by McLeod, his first career playoff tally, with 10:07 left in the second period. McLeod and Ondrej Palat combined on a gorgeous play, with Palat doing the grunt work of taking the puck away from, first, Adam Fox, and then Chris Kreider in the Rangers’ zone. As Palat squeezed between both Rangers and advanced on Igor Shesterkin with McLeod uncovered near the net, Mika Zibanejad slid to try to prevent a Palat pass. Zibanejad did not get there in time, Palat slid the puck to McLeod and McLeod corralled it and went around a sprawling Shesterkin to score with a backhand.
– With 4:21 remaining in the second, the Devils upped their lead to 2-0. Shesterkin stopped a John Marino shot, but Marino regained the puck and flicked a backhand pass to Tatar, who scored his first goal of the playoffs. In the third, Haula scored off a two-on-one break, nailing a one-timer past Shesterkin for his fourth goal of the series and a 3-0 lead. With 3:19 left, Bratt scored into an empty net.
– Both goalies starred in the game. Schmid made multiple highlight saves, including a slick glove grab on a one-timer rocket from Zibanejad in the first, a doorstep stop on Alexis Lafreniere on a two-on-one in the second and consecutive saves on Vincent Trocheck and Patrick Kane in one second-period sequence. Schmid’s work with his glove hand was particularly outstanding and he showed no ill effects from a poor outing in Game 6. Schmid totaled 31 saves.
– The Rangers’ situation would have been much worse without Shesterkin’s overall performance in net. The defense in front of him was spotty at times and Shesterkin had to work. In the first period, he made a save when Jack Hughes got loose late in the period and another stop on a Nico Hischier tip. Shesterkin also made a pad save on a Timo Meier shot off the rush and the rebound to the goalies’ right got past Yegor Sharangovich. Overall, Shesterkin made 20 saves.
– With 14:20 left in the third and New Jersey on a power play, Jacob Trouba delivered a crunching hit on Meier, who lay on the ice for a few moments before getting up and skating off. No penalty was called on the play and no Devil went after the Rangers captain, who had several similar hits in the playoffs last year. The Jersey power play arose after Nico Hischier plowed into Shesterkin and K’Andre Miller pounced on Hischier in retaliation. Miller was whistled for roughing.
– There was at least a sliver of doubt that Schmid would start in goal for the Devils after he was pulled from Game 6 after allowing five goals. Vitek Vanecek, who started and lost the first two games, entered in relief and finished that game. Schmid had earned the Game 7 start with his play in Games 3, 4 and 5, though, all Devil wins. Entering Monday night, Schmid was 3-1 in the series with a 1.72 goals-against average and a .937 save percentage.
– The Rangers went 0-for-4 on the power play, dropping them to 5-for-28 in the series. They scored power-play goals in three of the games in the series and won all of those. But when their power play fizzled, so did they – they lost all four games in which they did not score with a man advantage.
– Monday was the 18th Game 7 in Rangers’ franchise history. They fell to 11-7 all-time in Game 7s, including 8-2 over their last 10.
– Hockey folks talk all the time about the importance of scoring the first goal of the game, especially in tight playoff contests. With the Devils’ victory, the team that scores first in a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs is not 146-47.
