The NY Rangers are back in New York for Game 3 and the matchup has a live stream on the radio from ESPN and the coverage comes from NYC as the team tries to get the series 2-1 with the Los Angeles Kings in the Stanley Cup finals and the playoffs series could hinge on this matchup and it comes after LA won the first two games in overtime and now NY must find a way to bounce back.
The Rangers have to find their game and win here at home and they have totally outplayed the Kings and now have a chance to strike back to get the series to 2-1 and that is necessary or the Stanley Cup could slip out of their hands and the Rangers want to at least make this a series. The Rangers have long odds not since over 70 percent of the time the winner of Game 1 takes the Cup and only three teams in the last 35 chances have come back from a 2-0 deficit, but now the team will have to find a way to do it.
The first Stanley Cup game in 20 years is at MSG on Monday night and tickets have gone up to insane prices and anyone that gets to go is lucky. The Garden has not seen a Rangers win in the Cup finals since back in 1994 and that was a happy one in Game 7 and now the team is facing what is basically a must-win even if technically it’s not. The Kings came back from a 3-0 deficit this year against the Sharks, but the odds and math of that happening again are so unlikely that the Rangers have to treat this game like it’s an elimination matchup. The reasoning in the last game for allowing the Kings goal when Dwight King interfered with Henrik Lundqvist was shoddy and incorrect and NHL officials should feel embarrassed that a Stanley Cup game was decided by a horrible call like that and with so few goals being scored, plays like that need to be reviewed.
The Rangers were up at that point and the Kings started making their comeback and totally changed the momentum of the game on a play that should NOT have counted. The replays showed that there was interference and the officials simply blew the call. The Rangers now have to play better despite already playing well and the Kings have gotten very lucky and while everyone is praising how amazing and skilled they are at making comebacks, it must sure be really easy to come back from deficits when the officials give away goals to the team. The Kings are a better team than the Rangers, but they haven’t been for these two games and now NY needs to show them that with a win here.
The Kings cannot keep rolling like this and expect to be at full strength, as their size may end up being a disadvantage the more tired they get and that could play into the Rangers speed. Rick Nash, Brad Richards and Martin St. Louis need to step up, as players like Benoit Pouliot, Carl Hagelin, Derick Brassard and Mats Zuccarello have been playing their hearts out and they need more scoring. Nash needs to put some points on the board and the Rangers need that magic from the Garden on Monday night.
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