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The Rangers had already lost two games in a row going into Thursday’s action, but they weren’t truly in trouble yet. Now they are.
With the series tied at 2-2, the onus was on the Tampa Bay Lightning to claim at least one game at Madison Square Garden if they wanted a chance to advance to the Stanley Cup Final. The Lightning accomplished that feat with a 3-1 victory in New York to take a 3-2 series lead. Now the series will head back to Tampa Bay for a game the Lightning must win on Saturday.
The good news for Rangers fans is that they’ve shown a lot of resilience in the past. They were down 2-0 and 3-2 in their series against the Carolina Hurricanes in the second round and still won that series. In the first round, they were down 3-1 against the Pittsburgh Penguins and ultimately won.
“It seems like we play our best hockey when our backs are against the wall,” Rangers forward Ryan Lindgren said, per USA Today’s Vince Z. Mercogliano. “We’ve just got to go to Tampa and win a game. Take it one game at a time and just draw from those past experiences and go play our best hockey.”
The Rangers will go forward with the knowledge that they’ve been here before and preserved. Though, with all due respect to the Penguins and Hurricanes, the Rangers haven’t been here against the Tampa Bay Lightning before.
The Lightning are two-time defending champion going for their 11th straight series victory. In terms of experience and confidence, they seem to be unparalleled, and they’ve shown time and again throughout this playoff run that they’re still hungry and still willing to play desperate during their times behind the Toronto Maple Leafs and more recently the Rangers in the playoffs.
Can the comparatively young Rangers be the ones to dethrone Tampa Bay? We’ll find out soon.
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TAMPA BAY 3 NY RANGERS 1
The first half of the game was scoreless, and it was actually the Rangers that broke through first with a goal from Ryan Lindgren. It was his second goal and fifth point in 16 postseason contests.
Lindgren’s goal came at 10:29 of the second period and the Rangers only held that lead for 7:05 minutes before Mikhail Sergachev tied the game. Sergachev later added an assist, giving him six points in 16 playoff games.
The game remained tied until Ondrej Palat scored on a redirect with just 1:50 left in regulation time. As NHL Public Relations noted, Palat is the first player in NHL history to provide multiple GWGs in the last 2:00 minutes of regulation in a single postseason run.
Brandon Hagel scored on an empty net to finish off the game. He’s up to two goals and five points in 16 playoff games.
Igor Shesterkin stopped 24 of 26 Lightning shots. Although the Rangers have now dropped three games in a row, it’s worth noting that he has a .926 save percentage over that span. He hasn’t been the issue for them.
Andrei Vasilevskiy saved 24 of 25 shots in Game 5. That was his 60th career playoff win in just his 97th postseason contest. He’s tied with Turk Broda for 16th place on the all-time postseason victory list and Vasilevskiy is still just 26-years-old.
