WASHINGTON — It’s not like the New York Rangers were harping on it at all, but they’re well aware that the history of President’s Trophy winners in the playoffs has been, let’s call it, turbulent.
Only eight have ever won a Stanley Cup. And since 2000, seven of the teams that finished atop the NHL standings didn’t get past the first round, the most famous being last season when the Boston Bruins followed a record-setting regular season by blowing a 3-1 first-round series lead to the Florida Panthers.
“Yeah, we don’t live under a rock,” Rangers star Mika Zibanejad said after the Rangers completed an easy-as-pie four-game sweep over the Washington Capitals on Sunday night by a 4-2 score at Capital One Arena. “We know what has been happening to previous Presidents’ winners, but at the same time, I don’t know if that’s the main thing that drives us. But, yeah, obviously it’s important for us to move on. It’s nice to advance.”
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The Rangers didn’t want any drama. The Caps and their minus-37 goal differential made the playoffs on the final day of the regular season, so this was always going to be a difficult chore, especially as decimated as they were on the blue line.
But the Rangers wanted to give them zero hope and they did just that even though the Capitals, who gave up a goal to Kaapo Kakko just 57 seconds in, valiantly fought to the end Sunday night and arguably outplayed the Rangers in the first period and unarguably outplayed the Rangers in the second period.
But when push came to shove and the Rangers needed to score a power-play goal to break a 2-2 deadlock early in the third, the only time Artemi Panarin wasted was the 11 seconds between the power play starting and him scoring a game-winning dagger. From there, the Rangers locked it down defensively to further demonstrate just how many ways this deep, talented team can win a hockey game.
They scored 15 goals in the series, the most in the Eastern Conference thus far. They allowed seven, tied for the fewest in the NHL. Their power play clicked at a 37.5 percent success rate and their penalty kill doused 88.2 percent of the Capitals’ power plays.
Igor Shesterkin, who comically said Sunday night he could play better, gave up 1.75 goals per game and had a .931 save percentage. And in a league where so many teams struggle to find secondary scoring, the Rangers got their 15 goals from 10 players and saw 14 of their 18 skaters register at least a point.
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We all know about Zibanejad, Panarin and Chris Kreider and just how daunting the Rangers’ star power can be in the playoffs. But it’s this balanced scoring that could give their second-round opponent — the winner of the Hurricanes-Islanders series — fits in the next series.
“The lines and the defensemen and the way they’re set right now, it gives us a balance to just roll the lines at times,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said.
Added Zibanejad, who leads the Rangers with seven points, “I think that’s going to be huge for us and it has been huge and we noticed that in this series. We have four good lines that can play against any other opponent’s lines and do a good job defensively and offensively. That’s huge for us.”
It’s Vincent Trocheck who has arguably been the Blueshirts’ best forward. In Games 1 and 2 at Madison Square Garden, it was his line with Alexis Lafrenière and Panarin along with, of course, defensemen Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren that mostly smothered Alex Ovechkin.
Ovechkin was such a non-factor in New York, Capitals coach Spencer Carbery did everything to free him from those five players in Washington.
Ovechkin finished with four shots in Game 3, but in Game 4, Carbery skated Ovechkin on a line with Sonny Milano and Hendrix Lapierre and deployed him for a shockingly low 14 minutes, 51 seconds — 10:47 at even-strength.
For the first time in Ovechkin’s Hall of Fame career, he was held without a point in a playoff series and without a point in a postseason. He had one or fewer shots in three of the four games.
“It’s always tough to lose a series, especially we have pretty good chances,” said Ovechkin. “We just didn’t score. Our line didn’t score lots of goals and me, I didn’t play well, so it’s kind of sucks that we played bad.”
Trocheck, who scored power-play goals in Games 3 and 4, assisted on Barclay Goodrow’s shorthanded winner in Game 3 and on Sunday night also drew a penalty that led to Panarin’s winner, broke up a potential power-play golden opportunity by Ovechkin in the second.
“He’s been doing it for so long,” Trocheck said. “He’s arguably one of the best, if not the best, goal-scorers of all time and you have to pay a little bit more attention to him on the penalty kill. And that can’t be easy for him. Obviously we’re extremely focused on him, so it’s no shot at him. He’s a great hockey player and we’re just a little bit extra focused on him.”
All series, the Rangers did a tremendous job having few breakdowns when Ovechkin was on the ice at five-on-five and during the penalty kill. As Zibanejad said, that’s when Ovechkin gets free to get his shot off.
“We were doing a good job on the penalty kill, making sure that we stayed close to him,” he said. “But not only that, the rest of the three guys, the pressure that we put, the way we work together, that doesn’t allow them to break us down and get him open. That’s usually what happens, he gets open when there is a breakdown. We did a good job there and then just staying tight on him. You know when he’s out there.”
So give the Rangers credit. They were superior against the Capitals in every facet in all four games. And as good as they are, that’s no easy task, especially in raucous Washington, where the atmosphere was lively in Games 3 and 4 as Rangers fans and Capitals fans tried to out-chant each other.
“I mean, as long as you win and you move on, but obviously to come here, this is my first playoff series against Washington, it’s a building growing up watching Ovi and (Sidney) Crosby play here and just knowing how loud it is here, I heard it from other guys,” Zibanejad said. “It just makes it a whole lot sweeter.”
So for at least one more round, the President’s Trophy winners live on with a well-executed cruise through Round 1.
“We’re just trying to write our own page, our own story,” said captain Jacob Trouba. “That’s, I guess, the focus.”
(Top photo of Alex Ovechkin embracing Igor Shesterkin in the handshake line after Game 4: John McCreary / NHLI via Getty Images)
