The Rangers probably know better than anybody that playoff experience doesn’t always correlate to playoff success.
Just two years ago, the Blueshirts went into the postseason under similar circumstances to how their first-round opponent this season, the Capitals, came into this year’s playoffs. Their lack of playoff reps as a team was a narrative used to knock the Rangers, who ultimately proved everyone wrong with a riveting and unexpected run to the Eastern Conference Final.
So even though they took Game 1 in convincing fashion against a team that had six players make their postseason debut on Sunday — as well as Washington coach Spencer Carbery — the Rangers know from personal experience that one doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the other.
Experience only means something if you learn from it and apply it.
“I think it can be helpful,” head coach Peter Laviolette said of playoff experience after an optional practice at MSG Training Center on Monday. “There’s also players that haven’t had the experience and they have to break out at some point and they have to make their way and do it in the playoffs. It can help at times, I think, experience, but that’s not the end-all-be-all.”
If you don’t count the bizarre 2020 bubble playoffs — which I don’t — the Rangers had 12 players who got their first taste of real postseason hockey in 2022. Nine of those players are still with the team today.
It can’t be overstated enough just how many different playoff situations this Rangers core went through in such a short amount of time.
That all should count for something — the emphasis being on the word “should” — but it only will if the Rangers can execute what they’ve learned.
They learned from the Penguins in 2022 that it’s not over until it’s over, after the Rangers rallied from a 3-1 series deficit to advance.
The 2022 Lightning team taught them if you don’t put a team away the first chance you get, everything could be lost — which was the case when the Rangers blew a 2-0 series lead and then a 2-0 lead in Game 3 in the conference final series.
And they learned from the Devils last year that if you take your foot off the gas, which the Rangers did after dominating in the first two games, chances are you’re going to stall.
“We don’t want to do the same thing as last year,” Kaapo Kakko said of the Rangers’ seven-game loss to New Jersey. “We are ready for that. Two years ago, we played well, a lot of games. I’ve been playing a lot of playoff games, all the other guys also, lot of same guys two years ago. We know what to do.
“I think it helps a little bit. I didn’t have too many games before that [run to the conference final in 2021-22]. Right now, I maybe know a little more what to do out there, how it’s going to be, heavy games.”
Just like the Rangers had some veterans to lean on two years ago, the Capitals have the same.
Alex Ovechkin has more postseason experience than any player on the Rangers roster, with the closest one being Chris Kreider at 108 games, which is 40 less than what’s on the Washington captain’s résumé.
The Rangers may have successfully defended Ovechkin in Game 1, in which he was held without a shot on goal for just the fourth time in his playoff career, but the 38-year-old, like any top player, still has the ability to change the trajectory of a series.
They found that out from the Devils’ Erik Haula last year, and Lightning captain Steven Stamkos two years ago.
Playoff experience alone won’t take a team very far.
It’s what a team does with it — how they channel it and let it shape them — that can make a difference.
