Game 7 hype more for Rangers fans than players, coaches
Filip Chytil #72 of the New York Rangers celebrates his first goal of the second period against Antti Raanta #32 of the Carolina Hurricanes during Game Six of the Second Round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs with his teammates at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, May 28, 2022. Credit: Jim McIsaac
RALEIGH, N.C.
GAME 7!!! That’s us, all of us watching from the stands or at team viewing parties or at the local pub or just in the living room, rising and falling with every minute momentum swing in the ultimate match of a playoff series.
Game 7, aka just the next hockey game. That’s every player or coach participating.
Not that Game 7 isn’t significant — everyone is well aware of the win-or-go-home stakes. But the hype comes from the outside.
Watching the Rangers and Hurricanes prepare for Monday night’s Game 7 of their second-round series at PNC Arena — with the prize of facing the two-time Stanley Cup champion Lightning in the Eastern Conference Final — was to watch two loose teams go through their typical game-day routines.
The Rangers were a jokey bunch waiting to take the ice for their morning skate, with more than a few barbs and laughs directed at goalie coach Benoit Allaire for holding up the works.
Pregame rah-rah speeches? Ha! Rangers coach Gerard Gallant is loath to change anything he does, and he’s certainly not the speech-giving type. Maybe a veteran such as Chris Kreider or defenseman Jacob Trouba might say something to teammates.
The New York Rangers celebrate after Game 6 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup second-round playoff series against the Carolina Hurricanes, Saturday, May 28, 2022, in New York. The Rangers won 5-2. (AP Photo/John Minchillo) Credit: AP
Maybe.
“I hope not,” Gallant said. “They had a day and a half here to get ready to play. They’ve got 14 games of experience now in the playoffs. Kreider might say a few little things, but I don’t think they’re going to go over the top. That’s not what we need.”
Not that the players and coaches are not invested. Quite the opposite. But this — playing hockey games — is what all of them have been doing, almost nonstop, since they were young children.
Think of it this way: On an airplane going through bad turbulence, while we white-knuckle it back in economy, the pilot and co-pilot are just merely going about their business.
“You’ve played a lot of them in your career and in your life,” Trouba said. “Obviously, there’s some heightened-ness to it, I guess. But once the game starts, you’re just playing hockey. It’s what you’ve always done your whole life, pretty much.”
And the beauty of a Game 7 in the NHL playoffs, or in the NBA or Major League Baseball, is just that. Once the game starts, nothing changes from previous games other than the stakes. The intermissions remain the same length so the players can stay in their same routine, which is all any athlete craves.
Besides, if a player is thinking about the stakes during a game — any game — that player has lost already.
The only time an ultimate game really isn’t just another game is the Super Bowl, when halftime is more than twice as long as any other given Sunday just so the NFL can turn the field into a concert stage. That is a made-for-TV production, with football almost an afterthought.
On Monday night in Carolina, the focus was on nothing but hockey.
Also, in some ways, playing in a Game 7 actually might be more comforting to the teams.
“What’s it like?” said Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour, who has played and coached in multiple Game 7s. “I mean, at the end of the day, it’s another game. There’s a lot of hype around it. I think it’s actually easier to play in the sense that you know there’s a finality to it. We’re not playing another one. It’s it. I think it’s easier to come to the rink. It’s easier to say, ‘We’ve got to throw everything out there and let it all hang out.’ It’s over one way or another.”
Gallant, whose NHL playing career overlapped Brind’Amour’s, coached in his third Game 7 after skating in three.
“We can say all we want it’s just another game, but if you lose it, you go home,” Gallant said. “The guys know. You don’t got to bring it up. You don’t got to go read the papers and say, ‘Oh, it’s Game 7.’ You go play.
“You can’t change your preparation. You can’t change your game plan. You play the game and you play it hard and hopefully you get the breaks and you win a hockey game.”
Game 7 for them.
GAME 7!!! for us.
Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.