Home ice advantage in the Stanley Cup playoffs is a mythical beast equivalent to unicorn, a jackalope or Bruce Boudreau playoff success. The game is played and won or lost on identical ice surfaces in 30 different arenas, well, 16 if you want to get technical.
That being said, every advantage, no matter how small, becomes magnified come playoff time. While it is always nice to play in the familiar confines of your home arena, in front of (mostly) friendly faces, the guys with the sticks are the ones who make the difference, not the really loud guy with the face paint in seat BB6.
The New York Rangers will attempt to close out the Montreal Canadiens on their home turf/ice Thursday night, banishing the ghosts of the NHL’s most successful franchise. A Game 6 victory will mark the Rangers’ first trip to the Stanley Cup Final in 20 years and move Henrik Lundqvist one step closer to goaltending immortality.
Though the masked man affectionately referred to as “King Henrik” has enjoyed a plethora of regular season success and individual accolades, team success in the Big Apple has eluded the iconic Swede. With Broadway’s blue shirts and their monarch blown out of Game 5 in Montreal, the Rangers need their best player to be at his very best Thursday night.
A loss would mean a return trip to Montreal for a third consecutive Game 7 in 2014. Though Lundqvist has a spectacular record in his last dozen-plus Game 7’s, it certainly isn’t fair to pin the hopes of New York’s Rangers on the shoulders of their goaltender.
After spending the first nine seasons in the shadows of Martin Brodeur across the Hudson River this could finally be the year that Lundqvist can take a seat among the all-time greats. His numbers, even through Tuesday night’s disaster are spectacular (11 wins, 1.98 goals against average and a .931 save percentage), in spite of his team only scoring 9 goals in the six losses he’s been charged with.
A quick (pun intended) look over at the Western Conference can show how dominant a team can be when there is goal scoring support from your teammates. The Los Angeles Kings, who seemed to avoid scoring goals like they were gluten earlier in the postseason, have now scored four-plus goals in their last five games.
The Rangers are certainly capable of finding the twine as well. In the series opener, they punched the red light seven times against Montreal backup Dustin Tokarski. They’ll need to pepper the 24-year old relief net minder to keep the pressure on Montreal while supporting their own man in net. Mark Messier certainly isn’t coming through those locker room doors to guarantee a home ice victory like he did two decades ago, but the next best thing for the Rangers is to have their cucumber-cool goaltender come through in the clutch.