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What Went Wrong: New York Rangers

New York Rangers v Washington Capitals - Game Five

of the Washington Capitals of the New York Rangers in Game Five of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals during the 2011 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at the Verizon Center on April 23, 2011 in Washington, DC.

Len Redkoles

The problems the Rangers ran into in their series with the Washington Capitals are pretty apparent. When you get knocked out of the playoffs in five games, it’s easy to put a big circle around the areas where the Rangers just flat out weren’t better than the Capitals in at all. That’s not going to stop us from pointing them out one last time however. Here’s our list of things that went horribly wrong for the Rangers in the playoffs.

1. The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad power play
The Rangers had a lot of problems when on the man advantage. In 20 power play chances the Rangers scored just one goal, good for a 5% success rate. Stunningly, that’s better than two other teams in the post season (Pittsburgh at 4%, Boston at 0%) but unfortunately for the Rangers, they weren’t playing either of those teams. Without the power play producing, the Rangers offense wasn’t producing either as they scored just eight goals in five games. When you’re scoring that little against a team as good as Washington, you’re going to lose.

2. One grand missed opportunity
This might as well just be about Game 4 as that game turned out to be the make it or break it game of the series. The Rangers got the goals they were looking for getting out to a 3-0 lead before giving it all away in the third period and going on to lose in double overtime. With the Capitals holding a 2-1 series lead going into that game, a Rangers win in Game 4 would’ve changed the complexion of the series completely. Had the Rangers won, the pressure on Washington to not be chokey chokers would’ve been immense and doubt would’ve been cast on to their ability to win big games. Again. Instead, it’s a monumental collapse for New York and a heartbreaking defeat that turned Game 5 into a very loud funeral for the Rangers season.

3. Superstars playing too normal
Marian Gaborik was a no-show for New York. Sure he scored a goal in Game 4, but his overanxious play in double overtime turned into the game-winning goal for Washington. Brandon Dubinsky did about as well as you could expect given the circumstances but he had to play bigger. Being without Ryan Callahan didn’t help matters either. Defenseman Marc Staal’s main duty was shadowing Alex Ovechkin and considering Ovechkin was the Caps’ top scorer with three goals and three assists, that just wasn’t good enough.

Then there’s poor Henrik Lundqvist. Hung out to dry by his defense in Game 4 and Game 5, holding strong through the first three games of the series and just unable to completely shut things down. Believe it or not, the injury to Martin Biron may have been a killer as Lundqvist had to play every game down the stretch just to get the Rangers into the playoffs. Lundqvist’s job is play tons of games anyhow, but a breather or two down the stretch could’ve helped out a lot.

4. Not enough talent
It’s nice to be able to make this assessment and be able to cite the team’s head coach when doing so. After their Game 5 loss, John Tortorella had this to say about where the team is at.

“We’re still in a process so we’ll just keep on going to try to get better, there are areas with our team that need to get better,” Tortorella said before adding, “I don’t think our team is fully built yet. You’ve got to remember what this Washington team was for a number of years, look how their team was built with the draft picks. So we’re not there yet, to be honest with you, we’re not as far as talent. We have to play a certain way but, again, we’re in the process. We’ll continue to build to try to find our way.”

He’s right. Certainly in this series the Rangers couldn’t compete with the Capitals and while the Rangers do have a virtually maxed out payroll, they’re not there yet and it showed in how things went down in the playoffs.