PITTSBURGH — So is this the type of series the Penguins were looking for? Because if it is, they might have barked up the wrong tree.
The Rangers came into this postseason as the Presidents’ Trophy winners, carrying a reputation as a high-flying, fast-paced team. But if there is the thought they can’t play this type of tight-checking, grab-and-hold style — well, that thought would be incorrect.
They made that abundantly clear in Game 3 of this first-round series with the Penguins, taking a 2-1 win on Monday night at Consol Energy Center that came by way of those old postseason intangibles of grit, determination, and bit of snarl. That, and Henrik Lundqvist.
The franchise netminder was terrific in the third period when the Penguins really started pressing, but he made all the requisite saves to give the Blueshirts a declarative 2-1 lead in this best-of-seven series, with Game 4 on Wednesday back on the Pens’ ice waiting as a huge chance to make this a shorter series than the Rangers are used to.
“It’s a big game, it’s a big response for us,” said defenseman Marc Staal, knowing the Blueshirts’ 4-3 loss in Game 2 at the Garden was the result of a lackluster effort. “They’re sitting there feeling pretty good about themselves after winning Game 2, and we knew we had better and could play a better game. And it was a big response for us to have that type of effort and get a big Game 3 win.”
The Penguins have made it clear they’re not trying to out-gun the Rangers, not with half of their regular defensemen injured, and not with depth forwards who are far from playmakers. So coach Mike Johnston has his guys sitting back a bit, trying to let stars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin do as much of the heavy offensive lifting as possible.
That leaves the rest of the team to try to do things the hard way — crash the net, push and shove, and try to gain any advantage possible in the trenches. It’s created a level of contentiousness that has ratcheted up the intensity tenfold.
“It’s kind of natural, how the series goes, third game seeing the same guys,” captain Ryan McDonagh said. “You remember some things and you want to try to keep the momentum and keep the edge on your opponent at all times. So it’s just part of the playoffs.”
The referees made sporadic and arbitrary appearances in this one, but essentially let the game devolve into something from the mid-1990s. No better snapshot exemplifies that than when Patric Hornqvist scored for the Penguins with 6:48 remaining in the third, cutting the Rangers’ lead to 2-1 at the end of an unpenalized sequence of events that started with a Staal slash on Chris Kunitz’s ankle and then Hornqvist cross-checking Dan Girardi in the back to free himself for the loose puck.
But playing with the lead, playing in tight quarters, the Rangers know how to do that. They did it all the way to the Stanley Cup final last season.
“I think it talks about the group of guys in here that we understand what it takes to play with the lead,” alternate captain Derek Stepan said. “And we have to continue to get better at it. … It’s difficult to do, but you have to try your best to stay on your toes.”
The Rangers were on their toes to start the game, going out to a 1-0 lead a 8:43 of the first when Carl Hagelin broke free on a great seam pass from Keith Yandle and beat Marc-Andre Fleury glove-side. The Penguins didn’t get a shot on goal — not one — until a 71-footer from Ben Lovejoy 15:10 in.
The lead was extended to 2-0 at 11:07 into the second, when Chris Kreider converted a rebound off the back wall, coming from an intentional shot wide of the net from Staal.
And that was enough, certainly for Lundqvist and certainly for the Rangers, who have now won 38-of-39 games this regular and postseason when they’ve gone into the third period with a lead. Now it’s just how they’ll play with lead in the series that matters.
“We’ve been real good at getting to our strengths and playing the way we want to,” McDonagh said. “We wanted to play physical, too, and we showed we have just as much push as them.”