{"id":34927,"date":"2022-06-03T11:22:45","date_gmt":"2022-06-03T11:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/rangers-look-to-break-incredible-lightning-playoff-streak\/"},"modified":"2022-06-03T11:22:45","modified_gmt":"2022-06-03T11:22:45","slug":"rangers-look-to-break-incredible-lightning-playoff-streak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/rangers-look-to-break-incredible-lightning-playoff-streak\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers look to break incredible Lightning playoff streak"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>The Rangers have defied the odds at every turn on this playoff run, and now they&#8217;re eyeing another improbable challenge that could potentially change the entire trajectory of this Eastern Conference Final series. <\/p>\n<p>Tampa Bay hasn&#8217;t lost twice in a row in the playoffs in three years, but that is the opportunity the Rangers have in front of them in Game 2 Friday night at Madison Square Garden after they earned their first series lead of the postseason with an impressive win in the opening contest. <\/p>\n<p>The last time the Lightning lost two consecutive games in the postseason was back in 2019, when they were swept in four games by the Blue Jackets in the first round.  Since then, Tampa Bay has followed every single playoff loss with a win and has two Stanley Cups to show for it. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI read that they&#8217;re 17-0 in games after a loss,\u201d Rangers head coach Gerard Gallant said after an optional practice at the MSG Training Center on Thursday.  \u201cIt doesn&#8217;t matter to me, it really doesn&#8217;t.  I mean, they didn&#8217;t beat us 17 times.  They beat other teams.  We just got to get ready to play our game and go play. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know they&#8217;re going to be good, we know they&#8217;re a great team.  Everybody knows that.  But it doesn&#8217;t affect what we&#8217;re going to do tomorrow. &#8221; <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><figcaption>The Rangers celebrate during their Game 1 win over the Lightning. <\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But if any team has proven that it is capable of snapping streaks and figuring out how to make the impossible possible, it&#8217;s the Rangers. <\/p>\n<p>In order to make it out of the first round against the Penguins, they had to overcome a 3-1 series deficit, something that previously happened just 30 times in NHL history and two times in franchise history.  In order to make it out of the second round against the Hurricanes, the Rangers needed a Game 7 triumph in Carolina&#8217;s undefeated home fortress against a team that had a top-five regular-season record in their building. <\/p>\n<p>And they&#8217;re still here, taking on the defending back-to-back champions in their first conference final appearance in seven years. <\/p>\n<p>The Rangers expect a much different Lightning team on Friday.  Even right after winning Game 1 by a margin, 6-2, Gallant pointed out that Tampa Bay hadn&#8217;t seen game action in over a week and that it certainly played a part in the performance. <\/p>\n<p>This is not a Rangers team that has ever gotten ahead of itself.  And that&#8217;ll be the key for the Rangers to become the first of eight teams to hand the Lightning two postseason losses in a row. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey&#8217;re going to be ready to play,\u201d Gallant said.  \u201cYou don&#8217;t win two Stanley Cups and not be ready to play this time of year.  We&#8217;re expecting their pushback.  But we&#8217;re going to play our game again, we&#8217;re going to play the best we can and worry about playing our game. &#8221; <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"no\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/playlist.megaphone.fm\/?e=NYPH2727991958&amp;light=true\" width=\"100%\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>A rejuvenated Tampa Bay squad could show up at the Garden Friday night, but the Rangers played some of their best hockey of the playoffs in that Game 1 victory.  Top players such as Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider are heating up at the right time, and the Kid Line of Alexis Lafreniere, Filip Chytil and Kaapo Kakko has been magnificent in providing secondary scoring. <\/p>\n<p>Sending this Eastern Conference Final series back to Tampa with a 2-0 edge would be invaluable for the Rangers&#8217; hopes of advancing to the Stanley Cup Final against either the Oilers or the Avalanche. <\/p>\n<p>The Rangers have gotten to this point against all odds.  Can they keep making their own luck? <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We know we won [Wednesday] night and we&#8217;re up 1-0 in the series, but it doesn&#8217;t make a difference, \u201dGallant said.  &#8220;You just worry about the next game and you move on and you play the game and get ready for the next one.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>    .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Rangers have defied the odds at every turn on this playoff run, and now they&#8217;re eyeing another improbable challenge that could potentially change the entire trajectory of this Eastern Conference Final series. Tampa Bay hasn&#8217;t lost twice in a row in the playoffs in three years, but that is the opportunity the Rangers have &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/rangers-look-to-break-incredible-lightning-playoff-streak\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Rangers look to break incredible Lightning playoff streak<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[11],"tags":[1527,2726,1526,2729,2730,295,3437],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/060122Rangers62CW.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1024","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34927"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}