Rangers season on the brink after Lightning get the breaks

Ping!There is no sound quite like it, in any other sport. That ping resounds throughout a hockey arena, quiets the whole building for a breathless moment. It is the sound of rubber puck on iron post, the narrowest of escapes.Two pings rang out in the first period Thursday night, emanating from the pipe to Igor Shesterkin’s glove side. The Ranger goalie was beaten twice by sharp, elevated shots from Nikita Kucherov and Nick Paul. The pucks bounced harmlessly aside.The Garden crowd gasped, then exhaled. Game 5 would become another low-scoring coin flip, decided as much by good fortune as hard work.And then, sure enough, the weird goals started. By the time they stopped, the Lightning had a 3-1 victory on the strength of two, blue-line shots from Mikhail Sergachev, of all people, resulting in a goal and an assist for the defenseman. Tampa Bay now heads home with a 3-2 series lead, having snapped the Rangers’ home playoff win streak at eight.“It was an even game, a defensive battle,” said Gerard Gallant, who was not thrilled with the officiating. “We played well enough to win. Screened goals. Shesterkin didn’t see either one. It was one of those games. It’s a tough night, there’s no doubt. But tomorrow we’ll be on an airplane and be ready to play a game in Tampa Bay.”If there is one flaw in the swift, free-flowing game of NHL hockey — besides the stupid fighting, of course — it is the random nature of some goals, and the importance of dumb luck. Goals can come at times from nowhere, with no hint of a buildup. They can be fluky. They can be undeserving.Given the low-scoring nature of playoff hockey, they can also be decisive. A puck can bounce off a skate, or a leg, or a pipe, and win a series. It can squeeze through bodies, and handcuff a great goaltender.Ryan Lindgren scored the first goal of this game from near the left boards and from an improbable, sharp angle at 10:29 of the second period. Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy was looking for a pass, not a shot.“I just picked the puck off the wall, saw some guys in front of the goal, and tried to throw it there,” Lindgren told ESPN.This was only Lindgren’s second goal of the playoffs. For much of the postseason, he has been battered and bruised, a gutsy rag doll, limping through one injury after another. But Lindgren was in the right place at the right time, and his goal lit up the Garden.Sergachev tied the game and assisted on Palat’s go-ahead score late in the third period. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images North America/TNS)The Rangers’ lead did not last long. Sergachev, who hadn’t scored in his last 39 playoff games, knocked a wrist shot from the blue line between the legs of Kevin Rooney and past a screened Shesterkin at 17:34. The goalie never saw the puck until it was too late.All that tight, disciplined checking and great goaltending, for what? Two lucky, unassisted goals — a hope and a prayer, by two unlikely scorers.The Pinstripe ExpressWeeklyThe Daily News sports editors handpick the week’s best Yankees stories from our award-winning columnists and beat writers. Delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. So the score was tied, as two evenly-matched opponents hurtled toward another unpredictable finish. Sergachev won it, somehow, with just 1:50 left in the third period. He fired another long wrister — deflected by Ondrej Palat — past Shesterkin. The game ended with an empty net goal and some ridiculous MMA action between the two sides — which shouldn’t even have been broadcast by ESPN.“It definitely stings,” Jacob Trouba said, of the loss. “But we have a short mindset. The series isn’t over. It’s not like we’re getting the doors blown off us.”Considering the luck factor involved in this sport, it is something of a miracle that any worthy team can somehow rise to the top each season, with so many tiers of playoff series. Yet against such odds, the best hockey teams, with the hottest goalies, more often than not capture the Cup. There have been dynasties. The Isles and the Oilers of the Eighties are classic examples. The Red Wings, in the Nineties and 2000s, are a more borderline case.Now the Lightning is trying to establish itself this spring as a full-blown dynasty. Tampa Bay is skating hard toward a “three-peat”— the term once trademarked by Pat Riley, earning the basketball coach considerable money through merchandising.First, however, Tampa Bay must win one more game against the Rangers. One more ping needs to bounce the right way for the Lightning players, before they can head to Denver for the Finals.“We need to play the same way,” Palat said, about Game 6 on Saturday.And get the same breaks.



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