The Rangers need to repeat more scenes like this on Garden ice if they hope to make any noise in the playoffs.
Reuters
IF it’s any consolation to the Rangers, a lot of the fans expressing their unhappiness with the team’s 15-16-3 home record will be priced out of the Garden next season, replaced by persons who don’t show up often enough to know failure when they see it.
When a team does better on the road, the most plausible theory is that angry fans cause uptight players. Nowhere does the anxiety come more into play than on the man-advantage but, in recording the third-highest road point total in the Eastern Conference this season, the Rangers have only succeeded on 15.1 percent of their road power plays, as opposed to 18.5 percent at home.
They actually have averaged more goals per game at home (2.97) than on the road (2.47), a significant half-goal difference. So just how frozen have become the Rangers’ hands from the chill from their fans, real or imagined?
There has been sporadic booing, but the city generally likes this hard-working team and have given it little reason to want to flee to road sanctuaries. Yeah, the Rangers may keep things simpler on the road, but the numbers simply aren’t adding up.
“You can feel the impatience every now and then,” said Marc Staal. “But I don’t think it changes the way we play.
“I just think that at the beginning of year we started off well on the road and our confidence grew. It’s not like we have played really poorly at home, we just don’t seem to get it done as much.”
Despite three straight excruciating losses on the last extended Garden stand, the Rangers come home tonight to play the Islanders still four points to the good of ninth place and with only one more game played than all but one of their five rivals (the Devils) for the final two spots.
In other words, the Rangers remain in reasonably good shape for a team that has tracked mud into its own house and spilled ink on the sofa. With four of the team’s remaining seven home games coming in the next five contests, opportunity knocks again and also threatens to knock the Rangers out.
“We like playing at home, like the atmosphere,” said Erik Christensen. “I don’t sense at all any anxiety or tentativeness.
“For some reason, I don’t know what, we haven’t won as many as we would like.”
You can’t figure it out from the Rangers’ goals-against numbers, which are only a miniscule .05 per game better on the road than at home, but then, it has been a statistically aberrant year. The Rangers have three wins by 7-0 and another of 6-0 and yet are only 19th in the league in goals scored. Henrik Lundqvist has a league-leading nine shutouts, yet no one watching would objectively argue he has had an exceptional season.
Asked if he saw any difference in his team’s home and road efforts that would reflect such discrepancy in the results, John Tortorella said: “No, I don’t.
“We have gone through some of the same problems on the road that we have at home, including at certain times our starts. We have played really well at home and lost. But especially this time of year, it doesn’t matter where we are playing, we have to play the right way.”
And the results should follow, yet, after 70 games, they still oddly refuse. So the Rangers have to refuse to give in to the record and come home for the final three games of the season like it’s where they live. Otherwise, they will die.