The Bruins are a better team -- much better -- than the Rangers at this particular point in time. It takes four games to win a best-of-seven, and the Bruins have won three and know the pain of blowing 3-0 leads, but the advantages the B’s are enjoying are palpable.
They roll four lines and the Rangers do not. The Bruins’ fourth line accounted for the scoring in Game 3’s 2-1 come-from-behind victory Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden. The Bruins as a whole have physically and mentally sucked the life out of the building and the team in blue.
Yeah, the Bruins have received the lucky bounces, but luck is by design. You often create your own breaks in sports and that’s exactly what the Bruins did on the game-winning goal, when Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist lost track of a Shawn Thornton tip that bounced into the air, off Lundquist’s mask and bounced a few inches from the goal line.
Lundqvist didn’t see it. Daniel Paille did and delivered. The Bruins had men in front of the Rangers’ net all night long and created their opportunity to go ahead for good. The B’s fourth line of Paille, Thornton and Gregory Campbell left New York’s defense careless and helpless. Paille and Thornton also assisted on defenseman Johnny Boychuck’s game-tying goal in the third before setting themselves up for success.
“It hit me in the head and went straight up, and nobody saw it, and it just landed on (Paille’s) stick,” Lundqvist. “At some point you’re gonna need some puck-luck to win games.”
The Rangers should consider themselves lucky. If not for Lundqvist’s 32 saves -- many of them spectacular off breakaways and odd-man rushes caused by turnovers and breakdowns -- Game 3 would have been a total embarrassment. The Bruins scored two off the King because unlike the Rangers, they swarmed the opposing goalie like annoying gnats and mosquitos that lurk in the middle of a summer barbecue. B’s goalie Tuukka Rask was rarely tested. He stopped 23 of 24 Rangers shots, but as is usually the case with the Blueshirts offense, many of those shots didn’t give Rask much to think about or get into his head.
As complete a hockey game the Bruins have played, the Rangers have major issues. The power play is a frightening 0-for-10 in the series and 2-for-38 in the postseason. Rick Nash, the man acquired in the offseason to spark life into a flatlined offense, has one goal in 10 playoff games. The Rangers have netted two goals or fewer in seven of their 10 postseason tilts and to make matters worse, Brad Richards, another big-money player, is completely lost and could be a buyout candidate this summer.
There is faint hope for these Rangers. Three years ago, the Bruins were the third team in NHL history to blow a 3-0 series lead to the Philadelphia Flyers, losing two games at home and with a 3-0 Game 7 lead at TD Garden, a memory that hasn’t completely faded despite winning the Stanley Cup a year later. This year’s crew needed a miracle Game 7 comeback in the final minutes to avoid dropping a 3-1 series lead to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round.
On the other hand, the Bruins are completely locked in and have the Rangers in lockdown. The Rangers are 0-10 all time when trailing playoff series 3-0, and according to the Elias Sports Bureau, no team has overcome 2-0 deficits in two straight best-of-seven series in the same playoff year. They came back against the Washington Capitals, blowing them out on the road in Game 7, but have since reverted back to the bad habits that have them in their current predicament.
The Rangers have been out-hit and out-hustled, and if not for Lundqvist would be completely humiliated. The series isn’t technically over, but the Bruins’ treatment of the Rangers has been cold-blooded. All the B’s need is the killer instinct to put them out of their misery.
Follow Jon Lane on Twitter: @JonLaneNYC
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