MONTREAL — Call it a reminder that the Stanley Cup Playoffs are often a breeding ground for the unexpected to occur, and thank the New York Rangers for providing it.
You think about everything that was supposedly preordained before the puck dropped in Game 1 of this series between the Rangers and Montreal Canadiens, and an opening goal from Tanner Glass and a 31-save, 2-0 shutout for Henrik Lundqvist definitely ranked high on the list of improbabilities.
We should’ve known better.
Maybe not about Glass, who scored six of his seven goals and played 57 of his 68 games this season with the AHL’s Hartford Wolfpack.
When the 33-year-old Regina, Sask., native—who surprisingly dressed in place of skilled rookie Pavel Buchnevich—pushed through a crowd, collected the puck off a lost offensive-zone faceoff and shovelled it over Carey Price’s shoulder with a backhand at the halfway point of the first period, it was about as unexpected as it gets.
"But that’s playoff hockey," said Canadiens forward Steve Ott, who’s a veteran with 56 games of post-season experience under his belt. "There’s always unsung heroes every single night, and guys do it differently. Some guys are doing it physically, and some guys are winning 50-50 battles, and some guys are blocking key shots."
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And some are coming up with the kind of saves that can turn a series on its head before it’s 60 minutes old.
If some thought Lundqvist had suddenly lost his ability to do that – to be the linchpin to a Rangers win after a sub-standard regular season and a career’s worth of shockingly bad play at the Bell Centre – boy were they in for a surprise.
Rangers coach Alain Vigneault knew his netminder would come through.
"Henrik’s a man of experience, he’s a big competitor, he puts as much pressure on himself as anyone could, he knows that his season was average, OK, whatever term you want to use, and he’s ready for the challenge in front of us," Vigneault said just two hours before this game got underway. "We need him, and he knows."
It showed right from the start, as the strapping Swede blocked out the eardrum-shattering noise from the crowd and peered through the graceless ballet of 40 first-period hits to make 16 stops.
He got better and better as the game moved along.
With just under five minutes to play in a second period that saw the Rangers assert themselves in front of Carey Price, and with New York forward J.T. Miller serving a penalty for delay of game, Lundqvist stared down Montreal’s best chances.
The first one came when Canadiens defenceman Andrei Markov came down the left side, pivoted twice and found leading-scorer Max Pacioretty all alone in the slot.
The heavy wrist shot came and Lundqvist kicked it aside with a lightning-quick reaction.
Seconds later, Canadiens defenceman Shea Weber snuck in on the backdoor and put everything he had into a one-timed snap shot that Lundqvist smothered after diving to get in position.
"It was a great save," said Weber. "The puck was rolling, but I still got a lot of wood on it. I got it up. I think it would’ve had to have found a squeaky hole to get in."
But there were no cracks in Lundqvist’s armour, no apparent blemishes, and none of that unsteadiness that had produced a lifetime record of 6-10-2 and a save percentage well south of the .900 mark in Montreal.
"As a goalie you always try to look at the good things in every situation," said the man they call the King. “I had butterflies for two days. I’ve been thinking about this for almost every hour for the past week about the start and to get going and feeling anxious and nervous and excited at the same time. It’s just nice to get going.”
He led, the Rangers followed.
They recorded 31 shots of their own, notched 45 of a staggering 98 hits thrown between two teams not really known for that style of game, and they locked it down in the third period by holding Montreal to just five shots on net.
"Home or away, we want to play the right way," said Vigneault before the performance.
Mission accomplished—and that much was potentially foreseeable after the Rangers put together the NHL’s best road record this season.
And if you had to pick out what could lead to Montreal’s undoing, you wouldn’t have looked further than their popgun offence, which averaged less than 2.5 goals per game since Claude Julien took over as coach on Feb. 14.
"We could do a little bit of a better job around the net bearing down and trying to bury those second and third chances," said Pacioretty.
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That would certainly lead to a goal or two, and it’s possible that’s all it’s going to take to win a game in this tight-checking affair.
You have to figure the Canadiens have it in them, especially after proving their resilience all season long. And if they come out in Game 2 like they did in Game 1, they have a great chance to tie this series up.
But if we failed to acknowledge it before, it’s worth mentioning it now: be prepared for the unexpected.
