What happened to the Rangers in Game 4 through the eyes of The Maven.
Lady Luck said to the Rangers: "Enough already. Play real playoff hockey for a change. I'm done helping you."
Or to put it another way; Analytics killed the Blueshirts. That and a Blake Wheeler overtime penalty.
New York was outshot – again – 40-23. They were out-face-off'd: 52-48.
They were out-power-played 50 percent to 33 percent. They were the second-best team, but somehow escaped to overtime before quickly losing 3-2 in Beautiful Downtown Sunrise.
AND, they took one more penalty than Florida and it proved fatal. Al Barkov to Sam Reinhart and Igor Shesterkin is still looking for the rubber.
"If Sam is open," said Barkov, "we want to look for him."
Why not? Reinhart is Florida's power play king and was egregiously uncovered by the Rangers defenders. The shot went from Sam's stick to the net faster than you can say 'Tied series.'"
"Reinhart has an awesome shot," said teammate Carter Verhaeghe, who knows a bit about scoring as he got one last night in the 3-2 decision. "I was pretty confident he was gonna put that one in."
Peter Laviolette may have dreamed that his skaters would win sudden-death games forever but he was sadly mistaken. Yes, Pistol Pete, there is such a thing as The Law Of Averages.
The winning goal was the result of a super tic-tac-toe passing scheme. The shot was perfect – just inside the pipe – but the result could have been avoided.
"The Rangers PK left the 'Bumper Guy' (Reinhart) too much room in the slot for the winner," a scout explained.
What is inexplicable is the abject failure of New York's "Big Three" – Breadman Panarin, Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad – to score. So far in this series, the top guns have been somewhere in the bottom when they should be rallying the team.
Considering the top-heavy talent imbalance favoring Florida, it's amazing that the series is tied at two. The Panthers are bigger, and more skilled than New York with captain Barkov leading the way.
He played 22:04, had two assists and, as one reporter put it, "was a beast!" setting up Reinhart's winner, among other meaningful moves.
Once again Shesterkin kept his club in the game with the usual surplus of saves. Meanwhile Sergei Bobrovsky was good when he had to be with a few highlight stops along the way.
"Overall," lamented Zibanejad, "it was not the result we wanted but the series now isbest-of-three. So, we'll go home and try to take care of Game Five."
Or, as captain Jacob Trouba observed, "We have to find the ability to raise our level. Florida is a pretty desperate team."
Is Florida desperate? What about the Rangers, my friend?
See ya tomorrow at The Garden and we'll find out, won't we?