Pregame Skate: Rangers once again try for two-game series lead

Six times the Rangers have had a one-game lead this postseason. Six times they lost the next game. Will the seventh time be the charm or will the Devils put things back to square one again.

By Brian Stubits

May 21, 2012 at 9:47 am ET • 3 min read

8 ET, Rangers at New Jersey, Game 4 (NBC Sports Network)

Perhaps the seventh time is the charm? The Rangers are sure hoping so.

Going into Game 4 at the Rock on Monday night, the Rangers enter with a 2-1 series lead. It's the sixth time this postseason that they have held a one-game lead in a series. Each of the previous six times the series was knotted back up. It's no wonder why they have played two Game 7s in two series up to this point.

What could be the reason for that? Is it an issue of the team just being unlucky? Or maybe they don't feel the same sense of urgency with the one-game series lead?

"No, no. We're always urgent. It's the playoffs," Rangers coach John Tortorella said on Sunday.

I am not sure what the reason is -- but I'd tend to lean more toward the unlucky/fluke side of the equation ... it's just how it has played out -- but I can tell you they'd probably love to fix it in time for Game 4.

One question before they figure out how to do that is who will do it? Brandon Prust was handed a one-game suspension on Sunday for his elbow to the back of Anton Volchenkov's head in Game 3. That means the Rangers have some options. They could slide Stu Bickel back into the defensive lineup and bump Steve Eminger up to the forwards. Or, perhaps preferably and more simply, Brandon Dubinsky could make his return. He's been in a walking cast for weeks but finally began skating again a couple days ago and if he's good enough to go, you have to assume he'll get back in the lineup.

Of course the Devils aren't without their own adjustments being made. On Sunday coach Peter DeBoer really shook up the lines in practice, splitting up Zach Parise and Ilya Kovalchuk. He is also likely going to sit Petr Sykora in place of Jacob Josefson to try and give his team a spark.

"We got shut out," DeBoer explained. "We were trying to generate some offense. That's been fairly common practice for us to move people around when we haven't had success scoring goals. A little different situation, and I thought we generated a lot of quality chances. I think the easy thing would be to stick with it and just hope you come out the next game, do the same thing and score.

"But we've decided to shuffle some things around, and I think we'll get some results in that."

That's the plan. Because in two of the three games thus far in this series the Devils haven't scored. And that's been with setting picks, according to Tortorella. DeBoer dismissed Torts' gamesmanship comments. But if nothing else perhaps a seed was planted in everybody's brains, including the officials, to keep an eye out for screens to help the Devils avoid the Rangers' kamikaze shot blockers.

At this point I really am convinced that if the Rangers win the Stanley Cup they will lose the maximum 12 games to do so. And this is nothing but a hunch here, but I have a feeling that the number 7 isn't going to be so lucky on Monday. All postseason long the Rangers have failed in putting space between them and their opponents.

Daily miscellany

I know, not the best timing with the Coyotes still alive, but Glendale still in a world of hurt in keeping the NHL in town. (Businessweek)
A neat look inside the Rangers fan flight from LaGuardia to Newark for Game 3. (Puck Daddy)
We end this today with video of Capitals forward Jason Chimera going out to the ballgame and throwing out the first pitch at a Nationals game. Seriously ... a Tom Gorzelanny jersey?