New York Rangers Stars Break Goal Drought, Trumped by Henrik Lundqvist's Revival

The New York Rangers played a decidedly imperfect game in Tampa Bay on Friday night. But they also came away with a 5-1 Game 4 victory, evened their series against the Lightning at 2-2, reclaimed home-ice advantage and saw a host of snake-bitten stars end lengthy slumps.

Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

Star forward Rick Nash scored twice, recording his first goals of the Eastern Conference Final and doubling his playoff output. Fellow star forward Martin St. Louis scored, putting away his first goal of the postseason.

Offensive defenceman and pricey deadline acquisition Keith Yandle scored, also managing his first tally in the playoffs. All-world goalie Henrik Lundqvist was brilliant after consecutive outings in which he allowed six goals.

Those bounce-back performances deserve consideration, but it’s probably worth looking at the imperfections first.

As impressive as that score looks, this could have gone the other way. New York was out-shot by a 39-24 margin overall and 19-6 in a second period where they somehow built on their lead. Not included in that shot count were two goalposts, both of them recorded by Tampa Bay as Tyler Johnson and Ryan Callahan rang pucks off the iron.  

Certainly, these are things the Rangers themselves are aware of. At the second intermission, Hockey Night in Canada’s Scott Oake asked Nash about New York’s confidence in Lundqvist, and the answer was revealing:

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We’ve got confidence in him. I think he’s one of the best goalies in the world. Those two games, I don’t think we were giving him much help, and tonight, we still have to be a lot better at helping him. We’re leaving that middle open and it’s giving them a lot of opportunities.

"

New York's defensive breakdowns were comically bad at times:

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I'm not 100% sold that triple-teaming the guy behind the net is the right approach here, Klein, Yandle and Fast. pic.twitter.com/2Qr4cZLi3U

— Jonathan Willis (@JonathanWillis) May 23, 2015"

As tempting as it is to look at the score and say the Rangers put together a dominant 60-minute performance, that’s not what happened. Lundqvist acknowledged as much to Oake after the game.

“I felt like halfway through, it could have gone either way,” Lundqvist said. “They had a lot of open chances, especially in the second. But then when we got that second and third goal, it felt like we started controlling the game a little better.”

With that said, a lot of what went on in this one will help New York moving forward.

St. Louis scoring his first goal of the playoffs sparked an emphatic celebration from the Rangers winger and understandably so:

The goal coincided with a significant shift in St. Louis’ play. Through the first two periods, the Lightning held a 7-1 edge in shots at even strength when St. Louis was on the ice, despite the fact that he hadn’t been on the ice for so much as one defensive-zone draw. In the third, New York out-shot Tampa Bay 4-1 when St. Louis was out there.

Nash, a favoured whipping boy of fans and media alike for his postseason struggles the last two years, differed from St. Louis in that he was good from start to finish. It showed in his results, too. His two goals were the first of this series and double his output in these playoffs, and he added a well-earned assist on Yandle’s second-period marker.

Yandle also must have felt a sense of relief after this one, despite his occasional foibles in the defensive zone.

In addition to the goal, he added two assists to build on a two-assist performance in Game 3. After managing just four points in the first 14 games of the playoffs, he has five in the last two and is contributing the way New York imagined he would when it sent away a first-round pick and star prospect Anthony Duclair to acquire him.

All of that should serve those players well moving forward, though both Nash and St. Louis deflected or minimized questions from Oake about their droughts. Meanwhile, Lundqvist’s comment after the game about his own bounce-back performance might have expressed the feelings of the team’s most prominent stars.

Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

Lundqvist was asked if he had begun to doubt himself, and his reply was admirably honest.

“Well, 12 goals in two games,” he admitted. “A lot of people talking and it hasn’t been easy the last 48 hours to stay with the plan.”

Rangers coach Alain Vigneault will surely emphasize defensive improvements as the series shifts back to Madison Square Garden, but Friday night, the team’s not-infrequent blunders helped serve a purpose. They gave Lundqvist an opportunity to shine, and shine he did.

Late in the third period, Hockey Night in Canada commentator Glenn Healy centered his assessment of the game on Lundqvist's performance:

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The question was answered, and it was “Would Lundqvist show up and be King Henrik?” And the answer is "Yes."

That second period, when the Rangers decided to do the rope-a-dope, they went 11 minutes without a shot and it was all Lundqvist, looking back at what he was like in the regular season and through his whole career. The question was answered. He answered it. He’s back. Now the questions are 200 feet away from him.

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Healy is exactly right. There was plenty in this one that Vigneault can find fault with, but Lundqvist and Nash and St. Louis and Yandle all answered questions, perhaps even questions that they were quietly asking themselves.

The pressures on all of them, both internal and external, will decrease, and they can focus on simply playing hockey in the rarefied air of the postseason's third round. The series may be shifting back to New York, but the incredible pressure that was on the team entering Game 4 will not be coming with it.

Statistics courtesy of NHL.com and NaturalStatTrick.com. 

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.