The Rangers had nothing, absolutely nothing, at the Garden Sunday night in their match against the Panthers.
Check that.
The Rangers had something.
They had Cam Talbot in nets.
And that was enough to record a 2-1 victory despite being overwhelmed through the final two periods, despite allowing Florida to unleash an astonishing 98 shot attempts — 74 over the final 40 minutes — during an unsightly performance in which the Blueshirts were outskated, outhit and out-thought across the entire 200×85 ice surface.
What the Rangers couldn’t do and when the Rangers couldn’t do it, Cam the Man did, and he did it all night long in a 38-save effort that was surely the best of his two-year career in extending the Blueshirts’ division lead to five points over the Islanders while holding three games in hand.
“Hats off to him,” Ryan McDonagh said. “We weren’t mentally sharp, we didn’t get the job done against their cycle, we could never get a counter-attack going, and we didn’t have our usual poise and patience with the puck.
“Ultimately we have to be a lot sharper with and without the puck, and for sure we will be,” said the captain, whose team has allowed a total of six goals over the past seven games while going 6-0-1, 14-1-2 over the past 17 and 33-7-3 beginning Dec. 8. “Obviously we cannot feel satisfied.”
James Sheppard and Matt Hunwick got the goals for the Blueshirts this night, on which the top three lines almost never had possession of the puck and on which Marty St. Louis suffered an apparent knee injury in a collision behind the net with about four minutes to go.
It was a nasty affair featuring a running feud between Chris Kreider and Erik Gudbranson from early in the first period, when the Blueshirts’ winger knocked down Willie Mitchell through late in the game when the Florida defenseman awkwardly tried to spin away from a neutral zone hit from No. 20 and was clipped on the leg.
There were angry words from and sticks wielded by Jaromir Jagr, who was simply phenomenal in generating 13 attempted shots in between owning the puck on the walls and setting up teammates for one glorious opportunity after another.
Again. The Rangers had nothing. But they somehow persevered, somehow got in lanes well enough to block 36 shots. Then again, of course they were in Florida’s shooting lanes, for they didn’t seem to have either the physical energy or mental acuity to get out of the way.
“You’ve heard me say many times, never critique a win but this is as close as you can come,” said coach Alain Vigneault, who seemed more shell shocked than Talbot. “I think we’re going to keep one copy [on tape] of this game and give it to Boyler.”
That was a reference to Dan Boyle, honored in a brief ceremony before the match for having reached the 1,000-game milestone in Detroit on March 4.
“There’s no doubt this was all about Cam,” Vigneault said. “Not only from the start of the game but in the second period where we barely touched the puck. One player gave us the chance to get two points.
“I also thought Sheppard played a good game, but other than that …”
Other than that, the Rangers survived, holding on for dear life after Brandon Pirri’s goal cut the lead to 2-1 at 10:11 of the third, just under two minutes after Hunwick made it 2-0. Other than that, the Blueshirts did manage to kill a penalty in the final 2:35 that became a six-on-four when Florida pulled netminder Dan Ellis with a minute remaining.
Other than that, there was Talbot, who played an athletic, technically sound and calm game while chaos was the order of the day all around him.
“There were shots coming from everywhere,” said Talbot, 13-2-3 with a 2.20 goals-against average and .945 save percentage since stepping in for Henrik Lundqvist on Feb. 4. “It’s a big challenge to be square when they’re moving the puck that well. “When I could feel that they were all over us, I tried to swallow the puck as much as I could, and angle it out of play.”
The angle here is the Rangers won on a night where they couldn’t have been much worse, couldn’t have been more brain-addled.
The angle here is the Rangers won again and that they won again on a night they had nothing except Cam the Man.
Which — and who — was all they needed.