(New York) For the Rangers and the Canes, it probably couldn’t end this way.
Updated at 0:00
It probably couldn’t end with such an overly obvious outing, in front of often overconfident New York supporters.
It couldn’t end like this, and then that’s exactly how it happened: with tenacious Rangers who chose to continue on the road, to the rhythm of their somewhat unclassifiable story. Results ? The seventh and last game of this series, since there will be one, will therefore take place Monday evening in Carolina.
It’s never ideal to lose, and for the Canes, it’s no more ideal than losing this way, by the score of 5-2, on this not too festive Saturday night for them in New York, against Rangers who don’t want to disappear. In the general season standings, only six points separated the two clubs, and in the reality of the playoffs, this gap seems even smaller, if that is possible.
Before the game, the TV cameras showed us jerseys handed out to fans at the Rangers arena, all emblazoned with the slogan “No Quit” on the front, which could be translated as “no question of to abandon “.
Well.
The players in blue were also right to undertake this detail game with a good cup of optimism; they had won the first two games of the series in the same place by a combined score of 7-2, while the Hurricanes were still looking for their first victory on foreign ice since the start of the present series, they who had an 0-5 road record heading into Saturday night’s opening puck drop.
Adding that other loss, that road record for the Hurricanes in the playoffs is now 0-6 this season. Is this the type of file that is sought? Oh no.
On this subject, a great philosopher has already written that it is on the ice that it is played, and then it is in full what happened on Saturday evening.
Time to say it, the Rangers went 1-0, then 2-0, then 3-0, and at that precise moment, we understood that for the visitors, the carrots were already cooked, although they had thrown 39 times on goalkeeper Igor Shesterkin, who clinched the win for Rangers.
Which brings us to a seventh game, where, as we know, anything is possible. In a seventh game, it can go either way, and also, the most important goal is often the next one.
We won’t be bored.