Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals had a similar theme to others that we’ve seen in this series but with a different result. In some of the earlier games we saw the New Jersey Devils outplay the New York Rangers for long stretches, but thanks to Henrik Lundqvist New York came out on top. In this game it was the Rangers who were the better team for almost the entire game, but thanks to a disastrous first 10 minutes of hockey it ended up not mattering. The Devils caught a break just over a minute into the hockey game when Stephen Gionta wasn’t penalized for a high stick on New York’s Derek Stepan. Gionta cruised to the front of the net and batted home a rebound to give New Jersey a 1-0 lead while the player who was supposed to defending him was holding his face and looking at the officials. Minutes later the Devils would take advantage of an aggressive Rangers attack as Marc Staal was caught up ice leaving Artem Anisimov back on defense. Anisimov did a solid job of tying up his man in front of the net but a point shot deflected off both players and ended up directing into the goal off of his skate. As if it couldn’t get any worse for New York the Devils ended up converting on another odd man rush as Travis Zajac beat Lundqvist clean to make it a 3-0 game. That goal appeared to be the backbreaker for the Rangers and is definitely a goal that Lundqvist needs to stop. But New York wouldn’t quit and before the end of the period they had a goal on the board courtesy of Brandon Prust. Early in the second period it was the captain Ryan Callahan who was credited with a goal after Anisimov’s centering pass deflected in off of his skate. The Rangers would continue to control play throughout the second period but couldn’t find a way to tie the game until Martin Brodeur misplayed a puck into a goal to even the score at 3-3. After that it appeared the Rangers stopped swarming the puck the way that they were when they fell behind 3-0. They tried to settle back in defensively, and although the Devils didn’t generate much offense against them the Rangers also didn’t generate too many chances once the game was tied. This proved to be their undoing as the Devils capitalized on one of their only chances when Ryan Carter tipped home a centering feed for the game winning goal. Zach Parise would add an empty net goal and now the Devils look to take the series on Friday night on home ice. In order for them to do that they’ll need to be much, much better than they were for the majority of the game on Wednesday. The good news for the Devils is that the Rangers haven’t shown that type of game on the road in the playoffs. For whatever reason they seem to have much more jump offensively when they’re on home ice, but on the road they settle into their defensive shell. That will play into New Jersey’s hands if it happens, so the Rangers will need Callahan to have another game like he had on Wednesday night and keep New York engaged. They’ll also need their goaltender to be about as close to perfect as he can get if they want to send this series to a Game 7 at Madison Square Garden on Sunday night.
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