“In the playoffs,” Nash said, “you need your best players to be your best players.”
Both Nash and McDonagh are stalwarts of Rangers teams
that have reached the playoffs year after year, and both had watched as they sputtered at home in the playoffs — six straight losses, outscored by 21-4, since a Game 1 victory against Tampa Bay in the 2015 Eastern Conference finals.
The Rangers’ 2-1 victory Tuesday night against the Montreal Canadiens, which evened their best-of-seven series at two games apiece before the series returns to Montreal for Game 5 on Thursday, turned on a sequence in the second period
that began with understated brilliance and ended, four seconds later, in unadulterated joy.
Long before Henrik Lundqvist earned a rousing ovation for preserving a one-goal lead over the final 35 minutes 32 seconds, and long before the Rangers turned back a frantic Montreal push
that included a rocket from Shea Weber that struck the goal post, Ryan McDonagh caught a puck with his hand.
The Rangers Finally Win a Playoff Game at Home –
By BEN SHPIGELAPRIL 18, 2017
The pivotal moment in a hockey game, that cumulative impact of all those goals
and saves and subtleties, can sometimes be ascertained only after the teams have left the ice.
Hours earlier, standing in front of his locker, McDonagh said that there would be no continuation from the Rangers’ listless Game 3 on Sunday.