This was thrilling Broadway theater.
The Rangers, who had stormed back throughout a pulsating third period to score twice, and who pushed the match to OT on Nikolai Zherdev’s scorching right-circle wrist shot with 8.1 seconds on the clock, were up by one in the shootout courtesy of Fredrick Sjostrom’s goal against Marc-Andre Fleury.
The Penguins were down to their final chance.
It was The Chosen One, Sidney Crosby, against The King, Henrik Lundqvist.
And with the Garden gallery roaring, just roaring, the crescendo reached a climax just as the game itself did when No. 87 deked and went to his backhand.
Save by Lundqvist!
“He is a great player, a very smart player who tries to trick you a little, but I don’t think he’s the best shootout guy in the league,” Lundqvist said after the 3-2 victory in which the Blueshirts trailed 2-0 after two. “I just wanted to be patient.”
If Lundqvist was patient, the Rangers were able to extend the match to OT by imposing their will on the Penguins throughout a third period of rolling thunder in which they outshot Pittsburgh 18-2. They drove in straight lines to the net, one line after another, building momentum with every shift.
“I heard someone say the other day that if you’re not on the edge, you’re probably in the way,” said coach Tom Renney, cleared by physicians to coach after suffering a concussion in Columbus on Friday when struck by an errant stick.
“You have to push the envelope.”
Lundqvist, who made a pair of sparkling saves in OT, including one ricochet off the skate of Sjostrom – now 2-for-2 with a pair of shootout game-winners – was talking the same language with different words.
“When we play our best hockey,” he said, “teams have a tough time keeping up.”
If the 8-2-1 Rangers are going to push the envelope and play their best hockey consistently and not sporadically, then Renney must give his team the tools with which to do it.
Really, it’s not rocket science. There’s no need to overthink it, no need to balance a hypothetical equation. The Rangers’ most talented center should be playing with the Rangers’ most talented wingers.
Scott Gomez should be playing with Markus Naslund, whom he set up for a slam-dunk PPG at 5:10 of the third, and with Zherdev.
Naslund doesn’t need the puck. He’s never been a puck carrier. His success as an elite sniper in Vancouver – 129 goals in three seasons from 2000-01 through 2002-03 – came from jumping into holes and working off linemates Brendan Morrison and Todd Bertuzzi.
That’s the way he’d be able to thrive here with Gomez and with Zherdev, the latter of whom came from Columbus with the reputation of needing to carry the puck, but certainly hasn’t lived up – or down – to that billing.
Of course you win with outstanding goaltending, discipline, and within a defensive foundation. Of course you win that way.
But you win in this league of stars with elite talent at the top. For the Rangers, that means Gomez, Naslund and Zherdev.