Deserving Loss

And so it ends as it must. We don't get to steal a win without earning one, to slide our way into the playoffs on a bullshit shootout. Yes, it sucks that a playoff berth was decided based on a shootout, and yes, Bettman and his crew should be embarrassed by how excited they no doubt are that their team sport had a playoff picture come down to a gimmick. Yes, it's bullshit, and it needs to be removed (or, at least, the game should end in a tie, and the shootout should award an "extra point" that is used only as a tiebreaker in the standings).

But make no mistake: the Rangers were not the victims of that bullshit gimmick. We were not the good guys, who got robbed by a league that doesn't know what's good about its sport. Rather, the Rangers would have been the criminals had it gone the other way. Outmatched at every turn, for every puck, in every battle; outpaced, outshot, outhit, and out-everything-elsed by a Philadelphia team that seemed to be the only team present who knew it had something to play for, we were the team that scraped by, thanks to a goaltending performance that "kingly" doesn't even begin to cover. We were the team that somehow found ourselves in a skills competition with royalty in our corner and a third-string in theirs, and we were the team that was poised to steal a playoff spot from a team we did not deserve to beat.

A lot of people are talking now about why we lost the shootout on Sunday. Why Lundqvist couldn't stop two of three, why we could only get one of three past Boucher, why Torts didn't put Gaborik out there at all. These are stupid questions, as the shootout is a stupid exercise. Do not ask these questions, because they are stupid. We lost this game in 65 minutes of hockey, not in 3 rounds of stupid.

The Rangers were awful from start to finish. As Lundqvist said, "our fourth line was our best line the last few games. You know, they played great, but it's going to be tough to win two games against Philly when the fourth line is the best line." At no point did we look like we wanted to win this game. It somehow seemed like the entire 65 minutes, we were trying to steal one in a shootout.

Dubinsky "[couldn't] put [his] finger on it, but we were a little tentative. We've been playing must-win games for a while, so we should have approached it the same way, but in the end it was a Game 7, and nobody wanted to make a mistake."

Now is when we start to question that Tortorella mentality, boys and girls. A man we hired for his "safe is death" mentality has somehow bred a team that approaches the most important game of the season afraid to make a mistake. You know what happened after we lost to Boston three and a half weeks ago? We stopped having anything to lose. We stopped being afraid to make mistakes, because we were basically out of contention anyway. And we started playing good, attack hockey again. We took people to the boards, we knocked people to the ice, we sent pucks to the net. Just like at the beginning of the season, when we had nothing to lose and went 7-1, we closed the season 7-1-2 (in the 64 games between those records, only the Oilers had a worse record than we did).

Sunday, we were a scared team again. We had something to lose, and instead of "safe is death," we played "don't do anything crazy" hockey. Except the fourth line, of course, who was allowed to go and check people and take shots.

Interesting, that the line that didn't play it safe was the only line that produced anything at all, in a game we spent waiting to lose.

Asked about the overtime specifically, Erik Christensen shed a much more direct light on this mentality, revealing that "John even said, 'Don't totally sit back, but don't let it end here, because we have a big advantage in goal in the shootout.'"

Well, Torts, it worked. You asked your team to sit back, not make any mistakes, and ride Lundqvist's back into the shootout, and we largely did. We played a flaccid bullshit game of skate-around-the-rink, never grabbed the puck, put Lundqvist through the game of his life, and made it into the shootout. Just like you wanted. And then what happened? Hank?

"Going into the shootout, I was pretty beat up. I was dead tired. It was a tough, intense game, but I tried to focus and tried to be patient, but they made two good moves. The season is over, and it sucks."

Oops. Let's review. At the end of the Olympic break, we solved our backup goalie woes by acquiring veteran Alex Auld from waivers, snatching him up before the Stars could get their hands on him. Since then, we played our final 20 games of the season. Veteran Alex Auld, who did not participate in the Olympics, started one of them. Lundqvist, who led Team Sweden to 5th place in the Olympics, started 19. Coach Tortorella, who entered the season talking about playing Lundqvist less, just never saw fit to give him a rest.

Then, Sunday, the coach told his team to lay back and play for the tie, keep it safe, and have Henrik carry them across the finish line. Lundqvist had to play the game of his life to get us that far, and as it turns out, after that many consecutive starts, and after that much time on ice, and after making 46 saves on 47 shots over 65 minutes, hockey is still a team sport. And the team that was supposed to win this game - the team that had been winning it for 65 minutes already - couldn't be beaten by only one man.

So, coach. If you really, as you say, believe that Henrik Lundqvist is the best goalie in the world (he certainly made a case for it Sunday, didn't he?), the question to you is this: doesn't a world-class talent like that deserve better? Doesn't he deserve a team in front of him that is making offensive attacks, or that is knocking people down in his crease (even if that means they take a penalty for it)? Doesn't he deserve a backup goalie that plays more than 1 in 20 games (or the equivalent of 4 games a year)?

Or, if that's not working for you, try this one: the "sit back and let Hank be a wizard" strategy doesn't work. Next season, can we go back to the "safe is death" plan? What have you got to lose? This killer 9th-place finish you've earned us?

Let's Go Coyotes!