Rangers Revel in Playoff-Clinching Win

NEW YORK -- This wasn't the time to wonder where these New York Rangers have been hiding all season, or whether they'll soon suffer through another identity crisis. This wasn't the place to ask if the Rangers will be one-and-done wonders, justifying their owners' satisfaction with mediocrity.

No, this was an oh-happy-joy night to be savored by Rangers fans, because the Blueshirts have slipped into the NHL postseason for the fourth straight season. Even more delicious, the Rangers had to beat their bitter rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers, to clinch a spot, setting the scene for the perfect hockey vortex at Madison Square Garden.

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The Flyers sealed their playoff berth one night earlier, but they were no more inclined to coast and rest bodies than they were to take the ice without pads. The two teams did justice to their rich and often brutal history, stretching the outcome to the very last shift. When the horn finally sounded, when Ranger goalie Henrik Lundqvist had made his last incredible save and the New York forechecking had repelled wave after Philly wave, it was Rangers 2, Flyers 1, and the playoffs can't get here soon enough. The rivals will meet one more time with seeds at stake (the Flyers are in the hunt for the No. 4 spot, NY hopes to climb to No. 7), but the Rangers have already leaped one giant hurdle: If they lost to the Flyers at home, their playoff hopes would have rested on a win Sunday in Philadelphia and, as an exhausted Lundqvist later noted, "we really didn't want that."

And so they whooped and hollered a little louder in the stick-raising celebration at center ice, before literally giving the shirts off their backs to loyal fans. Unlike other sports teams, the Rangers aren't dissected to the last milligram in New York -- did you know the Yankees already are in danger of not making the playoffs? -- but the grumbling and dissatisfaction over their streaky play had reached a fairly loud crescendo.

"The last few weeks, it's been kind of hanging over us," Ranger defenseman Marc Staal said of the they're-not-worthy brigade. "We heard what they were saying, so to finally get it done, especially at home, is very gratifying."

The Rangers unveiled a streak of grit and determination in the frantic last few minutes. They had taken a 1-0 lead just 52 seconds into the game, when Markus Naslund deflected a shot past Philadelphia goalie Martin Biron, and went ahead 2-0 at 12:06 of the first period on Ryan Callahan's goal. Philadelphia's Danny Briere notched a power-play goal to make it 2-1, with 11 minutes left in the second period, and from that point on, it was hold your breath and beware of the forechecks.

"Before we went out there for the third period, we said, 'Go out there and take it. Don't give it back to them,' " Staal said. "I think it just gave us the confidence to know we can shut a team down."



Fittingly it was Lundqvist, the Rangers' MVP, holding off the storming Flyers. He finished with 37 saves, and it only felt like they all came in the last few minutes. As the sold-out Garden crowd refused to sit down, there was a heart-stopper save against Daniel Carcillo, another shot that clanged the cross bar, a swift glove save on Jeff Carter's attempt. The Broad Street Bullies were relentless, but Lundqvist wasn't about to budge.

"I don't want to say he stole a game, but he certainly stole a couple goals there when they looked like sure things," Flyers coach John Stevens said of Lundqvist. "He is one of the few guys that can play on the goal line because he's big, he has great reflexes, and he can make some big game savers and he did in the third."

The Flyers are peaking at just the right time. Last year they made it to the conference finals, before losing to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Stevens said he thought his team, "carried the better play for 60 minutes and that's what you want from your team this time of the year," and indeed, had the puck moved just an inch from Lundqvist's reach any number of times, the Flyers would have ruined the Rangers' Garden party. But inches only count in horseshoes and wild hockey scrums.

"This is a big one," admitted Lundqvist, as he stood in his corner of the locker room and tried to play down his role in what was thus far the Rangers' best win of the season. "Sometimes you get too emotional, too fired up and you can make mistakes. I think that was the biggest thing for us tonight, to stay focused and not get too pumped up and take penalties. You have to stay smart. I think we did."

The gap between a No. 1 seed and the eighth slot is not that wide, so it isn't totally insane to suggest the Rangers could shake up the playoffs. They are not blessed with guts and heart like the 1994 Stanley Cup team, nor are they that deep or tough. But if they have cured their mental fragility -- and it sure seemed so during the tense third period against the Flyers -- New York might have reason to hold off its obsession with baseball just a little while longer.

It may seem like the Rangers began to narrow their focus in February when Tom Renney, the gentlemanly coach, was fired and replaced by the gruff, not-so-nice John Tortorella. He did lead the Tampa Bay Lightning to championship nirvana in 2004 before getting canned four years later, so perhaps his no-nonsense approach has snapped the Rangers out of a funk that had fans sometimes wondering if players even cared. Tortorella has never been shy when it comes to giving lazy players a swift boot, but when he likes a player, and he sure does like his goalie, the coach beams like a proud father.

"He was just outstanding," Tortorella said of Lundqvist. "That is how you win games in the playoffs. It starts with your goalie and it usually ends with your goalie as far as if you want to be there in the end and if you want to succeed in the playoffs."

It may seem like the Rangers have developed more bite now that Sean Avery is back in the fold, agitating and frustrating anything that skates. A quick Avery recap, for those readers in India: he has played for many teams, including the Rangers, and even his teammates haven't always liked him, but they like him even less when he's on the other side. His mouth is as nasty as his stick, and it got him suspended and into anger management counseling earlier this season when he said offensive things about an ex-girlfriend, a suspension all of hockey applauded and one that prompted Tortorella, then a TV analyst, to say Avery had no business playing in the NHL. Soon after, Tortorella took over the Rangers and Avery was picked up on waivers. The team has been one big happy family even as Avery continues to drive everyone crazy.

While the addition of Tortorella and Avery shook up the Rangers, the team still spent the next couple of months confounding and frustrating fans. Ranger fans are some of the most passionate souls on the planet; the first words out of their kids' mouths often are "Potvin sucks." So it was understandable their emotions this season fluctuated wildly, from wanting the Blueshirts to make the playoffs to hoping the team fell flat so more change would occur. Failure to make the postseason, reasoned the fans, would force the ouster of Glen Sather, the general manager who guided the organization mostly nowhere over nine seasons.

The hard truth is Sather won't be going anywhere, unless he replaces himself. In a city that demands the firing of coaches and executives seemingly every other day, Sather continues to hang onto his job. The Dolans, owners of the Rangers and the Knicks, seem to love Sather, though they've never bothered to explain why.

But this is sour conversation best reserved for another day. The Rangers waited until the second-to-last game of the season to play for their lives, for a spot in the playoffs and a chance to undo all their maddening habits. Chris Drury, the captain who recently endured criticism for his perceived lack of leadership, has found his mojo and healed his reputation in the last week. He assisted on both goals against the Flyers, notching four points in the last two games. Lundqvist, the hulking goalie who is expected to do it all when the Rangers go through their scoring droughts, is at the top of his game, mentally and physically. But is it enough to lead the Rangers on a deep run through the playoffs and give New York's forgotten franchise a super boost?

Lundqvist admits even he gets confused by his team's infatuation with standing up in the roller coaster cars.

"We know we can beat anybody. We can also lose to anybody," he said, and he shrugged his broad shoulders, clearly a man ready for the ride.