NHL Playoffs 2012: NY Rangers Have Lost Their Composure Against NJ Devils

Unless the New York Rangers find a quick disciplinary fix, the New Jersey Devils could soon finish them off the same way they lassoed the Philadelphia Flyers and bumped them out of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Getting the exact start they needed to Monday night’s Game 4 of the Eastern Conference final, namely a lead at the second intermission, the Devils lured the visiting Rangers into a rash of penalties in the closing stanza.

With a 2-0 pothole already at hand, the unraveling on John Tortorella’s bench began at the 2:37 mark of the closing stanza. That was when Derek Stepan, who has otherwise had an uneventful series, sat down for high-sticking.

Only four seconds later, Stepan watched helplessly as his fellow Shattuck-St. Mary’s alum, Zach Parise, poked home Ilya Kovalchuk’s rebound for the power-play conversion. With that, New Jersey pulled ahead, 3-0, and enhanced its ability to pace itself to a 4-1 victory, drawing a 2-2 knot in the series.

But in the 17:19 between Parise’s goal and the final horn, New York incurred another 32 penalty minutes on eight different infractions.

The Devils brooked 14 penalty minutes themselves in that span, but had no unaccompanied trips to the box; just three more power plays.

Perhaps the worst of the Rangers antics was generated by former Devil Mike Rupp, who logged 14 minutes all on his own at the 6:18 mark. He started by biffing goaltender Martin Brodeur in the head and tangling with defenseman Peter Harrold, neither of whom faced a citation for their involvement.

Rupp would adjourn to the dressing room with a 10-minute misconduct and double-minor for roughing on his tab. And he could follow his teammate, Brandon Prust, in the act of incurring a suspension for the next game.

Amidst the ensuing four-minute penalty kill, Carl Hagelin, another Blueshirt who has been unfavorably mute in the scoring department, slashed Marek Zidlicky as the Devils blueliner set up a regrouping breakout behind his own net.

Only 27 seconds after his jailbreak, Hagelin was in the box yet again for holding at 11:25. By night’s end, his totals through four playoff games against the Devils included no goals, no assists, a minus-two rating, six shots on goal and eight penalty minutes.

After Stepan, none of the penalties directly cost the Rangers on the scoreboard. But they certainly spilled valuable time they might have spent recompensing the deficit or at least setting a springboard for Game 5.

Instead, Ruslan Fedotenko broke up Brodeur’s bid for a shutout with 5:05 to spare, all but knowing his goal was otherwise meaningless.

That “highlight” was plainly eclipsed by a disciplinary meltdown not so dissimilar from what helped the Flyers falter in the final two games of their conference semifinal series with the Devils.

In Game 4 of that series, an initial 2-0 Philadelphia lead devolved into a 4-2 defeat, beginning with Petr Sykora’s power-play strike at 15:14 of the first period. The Devils finished that game with five unanswered man-up segments and an empty-netter assisted, in part, by Brodeur.

Philadelphia’s Claude Giroux was rendered ineligible for the following game due to a hit to Dainius Zubrus’ head. Two nights later, New Jersey came from behind again in the clincher with the help of three unanswered power plays, the last of which set up Kovalchuk’s insurance goal to finalize a 3-1 victory.

On Monday, with Stepan caged, Kovalchuk’s blast from the point off the draw spawned the rebound for Parise’s first dose of insurance. He would add another with an empty-netter assisted, in part, by Brodeur.

The patterns here are half-trivial and half-telling.