Washington gridlock — no, no, this isn’t about Congress — was replaced by Lightning open ice, and what a pleasure it was to watch a couple of skilled teams get out and skate.
“It was completely different,” Carl Hagelin said after Saturday’s Game 1 of the East finals at the Garden. “This was two fast teams using their speed, both teams making plays, not a lot of scrums.
“It was the exact opposite of the last round.”
It was completely different except for the score that was exactly the same — 2-1 for the Rangers for the seventh time in this tournament, through which they have won nine games.
It was the exact opposite, except the Blueshirts read and reacted the way they have for the better part of the last 16 months, since they began to develop into an elite team in January 2014.
“Every game is different and every series is different,” Martin St. Louis said. “You try to figure out what you need that day to win the game, and I think we’ve done a good job of that.”
Coach Alain Vigneault decided he needed to flip St. Louis and Kevin Hayes, bumping the rookie up to the unit with Derick Brassard and Rick Nash while shifting the veteran onto the unit with Hagelin and Dom Moore.
“A different opponent,” the coach said. “After looking at [Tampa Bay’s] games from both of their series, we just felt a subtle little change in right wingers on two lines would maybe help us out.”
It did help out the Blueshirts, with the bigger Brassard line extremely effective down low through at least the first period, establishing a tone through which the Rangers had a decided edge in zone time that lasted for most of the match, out-attempting the offensively gifted Lightning 54-37 at even-strength.
“So much of defense comes from playing with the puck in the offensive zone,” said Derek Stepan, whose line with wingers Chris Kreider and Jesper Fast were matched against Triplets Ryan Johnson, Ondrej Palat and Nikita Kucherov while supported on the back by the Ryan McDonagh-Dan Girardi pair.
“There are some different aspects to playing them as opposed to [Alex] Ovechkin and [Nicklas] Backstrom, but they’re all elite hockey players, and we need our five on the ice all in against them. We’ve talked as a group about how we want to approach this.”
“Obviously, the more offensive zone shifts you get, they’re not able to attack you. But they’re such a good line you know they’re going to get opportunities. We always have to be aware.”
The first two periods probably represented the Rangers’ most pleasing 40 minutes of the playoffs, playing their game against an opponent that will probably allow them to do so, as the Lightning have reason to believe they’re even better at it than the Presidents’ Trophy winners.
Yet there were the Rangers with just the one goal Stepan netted with 12.7 seconds to go in the second, having turned good goaltender Ben Bishop into the latest incarnation of Dominic Hasek after previously having done that with Marc-Andre Fleury and Braden Holtby.
Seriously, when every goaltender is that good, it can’t always be them. Nash, for instance, might have wanted to be a little bit more involved. Time and space are his friends.
The Rangers, meanwhile, didn’t yield much time and space to the Lightning, limiting Tampa Bay’s chances against Henrik Lundqvist, who was beaten only by Palat’s power play one-timer off a Johnson seam pass.
“Obviously we need to focus on their top players,” The King said after holding an opponent to one goal for the eighth time in 13 games. “They’re moving the puck really well and they have a lot of speed. If you lose the puck in the wrong areas, you’re going to see the speed even more.”
“I think we did a really good job of putting pucks in the right place, and that’s when you really slow them down a little bit.”
As Stepan’s line and the McDonagh-Girardi pair took care of the Triplets, the Brassard line and the Marc Staal-Dan Boyle pair took care of the second line of Steven Stamkos, Valeri Filppula and Alex Killorn, dominating that matchup. Boyle is playing his best hockey as a Ranger at both ends of the ice.
“Our team defensive game, when we’re back-checking and back-pressuring, it makes it easier on the D, and it stifles and frustrates them, not having a lot of room and space,” said Staal, who went straight up against Stamkos on right wing most of the way. “For the most part, we did that.”
Ryan Callahan, playing six days after undergoing an appendectomy on Monday, wasn’t quite himself, and how could he have been? It was No. 24 who was outmuscled and outmaneuvered down low by Hayes before the freshman pro fed Moore in front for the winner at 17:35 of the third.
Callahan was wasted on a third line with Cedric Paquette and Jonathan Marchessault. Expect Stamkos to move back into the middle between Filppula and Callahan for Monday’s Game 2 on a line that might create some pressure down low.
If presented with that different look, the Blueshirts will adjust, just as they adjusted to the difference between the Caps and Lightning.
Because one day after another, the Rangers are the same.