Access the Rangers beat like never before
Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Mollie Walker about the inside buzz on the Rangers.
tRY IT NOWLet’s start with what should be a safe assumption: The Rangers won’t put six goals past Andrei Vasilevskiy again. If they can do that, there’s really no need to talk about anything else — they’ll be playing in the Stanley Cup Final in short order, and you can stop reading this and go on with your day.
But despite a shaky Game 1 performance, Vasilevskiy is considered the best goaltender in the world for good reason. He allowed that many goals just twice during the regular season. So let’s chalk that up as a happy anomaly for the Rangers and go on with breaking down Game 2.
When you put that to the side, there is still no shortage of things for the Rangers to be content about — factors that they can carry through the rest of the Eastern Conference Final regardless of Vasilevskiy and regardless of whether Tampa Bay’s long layoff between series had a role in its listless Game 1 performance.
Keep rolling four lines
Barclay Goodrow’s return from injury in Game 6 against the Hurricanes has been a boost to the Rangers’ fourth line, as evidenced during Game 1 against the Lightning. NHLI via Getty ImagesThe best sequence of the game for the Rangers — maybe their best sequence of the entire postseason — was the lead-up to Filip Chytil’s second goal. They hemmed the Lightning in their own zone not just for one shift but for minutes at a time. Lightning defenseman Mikhail Sergachev was on the ice for 2:47 straight, one of the longest individual shifts any player had in the game, because Tampa Bay could not clear the puck.
