Win Or Go Home
he Rangers may very well have had their season on the line last night in Buffalo, and it appeared with 20 seconds left in regulation that they had done all they needed to do to secure the first road victory of this Eastern Conference Semifinal. But with the game all but secure the Rangers faltered, and committed a series of errors that culminated in Chris Drury’s game tying goal with just 7.7 seconds remaining. You could certainly question Tom Renney’s decision to send out an ailing Michael Nylander along with Jaromir Jagr in the dying second. You could also ask yourself whether Fedor Tyutin made the biggest mistake of his young career by icing the puck in the dying seconds of the game. Michael Nylander’s inability to win the faceoff, the Rangers getting caught with two players (Nylander and Dan Girardi) out of position when Lundqvist made the initial save, were yet more mistakes that ultimately culminated in a tied game.
But even then the Rangers had a chance to take the game. The Sabres’ Chris Drury was called for a penalty just twenty seven seconds into the first overtime period and the visitors had an opportunity to wipe out the bad feelings of the previous minute. New York seldom threatened though on the power play, and finished 0 for 7 with the man advantage in the game. The mistakes continued when Blair Betts perhaps unnecessarily hooked Maxim Afinogenov to set up what would ultimately be the Sabres winning goal. Finally Jed Ortmeyer instinctive reached out to try and take an Afinogenov shot from the blueline and instead deflected the puck downwards slightly, just enough to beat Henrik Lundqvist and send the Rangers back to their lockerroom in need of some serious psychoanalysis.