Eastern Conference Finals 2012: Rangers Must Avoid Sluggish Starts to Win Series

For some reason, the New York Rangers have decided they aren't interested in showing up for the first period in the Eastern Conference Finals.

If they don't buck the trend now, the New Jersey Devils will make them pay severely.

They did so in Game 4, dominating the opening frame and scoring two goals. It was a microcosm of the series as a whole, except Henrik Lundqvist didn't bail them out as he had in Games 1 and 3.

Had it not been for a late power play in which the Rangers took four shots on goal, the Devils would have ended the period with a 12-3 advantage in shots on goal. They didn't record a shot for the first 10:21 of the game.

That simply isn't acceptable. And Lundqvist, along with every Rangers fan in existence, knows it, as Dave D'Alessandro of the Star-Ledger pointed out:

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“I’m just a goalie. I can just look at my own game and try to come up with answers,” goalie Henrik Lundqvist said, after he was the only guy left in the room to address the slow start. “For whatever reason, our starts haven’t really been there.”

If you’re a Rangers fan, you were either alarmed by that first period, or just relieved that you were still playing with house money, because your team wasn’t even looking to make a play. They hardly passed center ice in the first 10 minutes of the game.

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I know the Rangers think they are solid enough defensively to temper any early advances, slowly steal the game's momentum and win a close, low-scoring game.

If this was soccer, they'd be like Chelsea against Barcelona and Bayern Munich, loading the box with defenders and waiting to counter-attack. If this was football, they'd be like an old-school Pittsburgh Steelers squad, winning with a stout defense and a strong running game.

And if it works, so be it. But in two games it hasn't, and in a third they were lucky it did. New Jersey is going to continue to attack, continue to come out strong, and continue to make the Rangers pay if they hit the ice snoozing for the first 10 minutes of the game.

It may be time to start with a bit more urgency. If they don't, the Devils will gladly end them.

Hit me up on Twitter—my tweets will gladly have another as well.