Rangers steal home ice, Gomez terrorizes his former team

As the first round of the playoffs progresses, we’ll try to take a close look at, at least, one game each night.

On the opening evening of the 2008 post-season, last night, we spent most of our time watching three Manitoba kids - Travis Zajac and Arron Asham of the New Jersey Devils and Nigel Dawes of the New York Rangers - as they faced each other in that beautiful new building in Newark, New Jersey.

Now back on Sunday night, we picked the Rangers to win this series in seven games and, as it turned out, we picked the Rangers for every reason the Blueshirts won last night’s game - they have more pure scorers and those scorers came through, and Henrik Lundqvist outduelled Martin Brodeur.

Fact is, if the Rangers are to win this series, what happened last night has to happen three more times.

In the first period, the Devils did a great forechecking job and, for the most part, had territorial control, but there was just a sense that the Rangers would ultimately win this game simply because New Jersey had a couple of great breakaway chances and couldn’t finish.

No finish, no win. Especially in the playoffs when good chances usually are quite dear.

In the second period, Brendan Shanahan opened the scoring for the Rangers and the Devils answered 12 ½ minutes later. That goal seemed to spark New Jersey, but the third period was all New York, thanks in no small way to a huge gaffe by Brodeur.

Then again, it was really more than a gaffe. He should have smothered the puck, but instead, handed it to Ryan Callahan who was alone in front. It was a shorthanded goal and a complete screw up by a guy who doesn’t screw up very often.

After the goal, you could see New Jersey sag. When your leader, your superstar, screws up, it can be more costly, psychologically, than anyone knows.

New York added a goal by Sean Avery at 17:07 and then Lloyd Dawes young son scored his first playoff goal, thanks to a classy pass from Shanahan.

In the end, Scott Gomez had three assists against his former team and played a whale of a hockey game while Shanahan, Martin Straka and Jaromir Jagr were solid and the Rangers’ did a nice job of keeping the Devils off balance - at least, after that shaky first period.

Still, this game was a lot closer than a 4-1 score might indicate. Both teams had 27 shots at the opposing goaltender (Dawes’ empty netter gave the Rangers 28 shots, officially), the Devils had more hits (34-27), the Rangers won more faceoffs (31-25) and New Jersey, which ultimately DID have territorial control missed more shots (15-7).

But while Gomez put three points on the scoresheet and received most of the kudos from the TSN broadcast crew, the real stars were Lundqvist and the Rangers’ backcheckers. New York players blocked 16 shots and when you toss in New Jersey’s 15 misses and the four posts they hit, it becomes apparent that New Jersey had plenty of chances to put this game away and couldn’t get the job done.

After Game 1, I still think this is going to be a long series.

However, if the Devils don’t bear down around the Rangers’ net, New York might put this one away quickly. See the highlights on YouTube below.