WASHINGTON — So here are the Rangers just over a year later, carrying the same 2-0 series lead into Game 3 of the first round.
It’s a different season, a different opponent and different circumstances, but the Blueshirts are face-to-face with the same opportunity they grossly underdelivered on last season en route to a stinging seven-game defeat at the hands of the Devils.
To the Rangers, that is for the outside world to make a big deal about.
Because inside the locker room, the Rangers aren’t allowing themselves to see any correlations to past disappointments.
There’s too distinct a contrast between the then and now to do so.
“I think there’s a different feel in the locker room,” Jimmy Vesey said after practice at MSG Training Center on Thursday before the team caught a flight to Washington. “We know what we have to do, how we have to play [and we’re] a year older and I’d say a little more organized this year.
“We’re up 2-0, but it’s still the NHL, it’s going to be a tough series. It’s always hardest to close a team out.”
This Rangers core knows that last statement better than most.
They weren’t just in the same spot a year ago, they also blew the 2-0 series lead they took over the Lightning in the Eastern Conference final two years ago.
In fact, the Rangers haven’t taken a 3-0 lead in a playoff series since they swept the Atlanta Thrashers in the first round in 2007.
The Thrashers are now the Winnipeg Jets, to put that timeline in perspective.
And as it pertains to their history with the Capitals, the 2009 first-round matchup saw the Rangers fail to capitalize on 2-0 and 3-1 series leads before Washington won in seven.
That was the series when head coach John Tortorella was suspended for Game 6 after memorably squirting water and throwing the water bottle at a fan in the Washington stands during Game 5.
History says the 2-0 series lead hasn’t bode well for the Rangers, but players currently donning the organization’s crest care not for what history has to say.
“I don’t think as a player you think about [the past],” Mika Zibanejad said. “The other two series that you mentioned [against the Lightning and Devils], we lost them. But I’d rather be up 2-0 than down 3-1 like we were against Pittsburgh [in 2022], being down 3-2 against Carolina that same year. I think it’s a new year, new playoffs and we just got to keep going.”
Game 3 on Friday night will present a new set of challenges, including an even more desperate Washington team that will be looking to take the Rangers out of their game any way they can.
The easiest and simplest way to do that would be to take the physical route, one that could frustrate the Rangers or bait them into situations that would leave them vulnerable.
Tom Wilson already started leading that charge in Game 2, but Matt Rempe and the Rangers will need to keep their heads about them.
It’s true, the Rangers have never had a dynamic like they do now.
They didn’t have Peter Laviolette as a coach.
Only three other Rangers teams won the Presidents’ Trophy, including the 1994 Stanley Cup champions.
If the Rangers are going to take anything from the past, let it be the emotions they never want to feel again.
“Probably just going through it and having that feeling after last year,” Vesey said of what they can take away from the Devils series. “It’s a different team this year. We’ve got new faces, players, staff, coaches, so it’s a different team. We have that experience and learn from it.”
