The New York Rangers finally figured out Ottawa’s Craig Anderson, and now carry all the momentum into Thursday night’s critical Game 7 Thursday night. After a 145-minute scoreless streak, the Rangers poured three goals in the second period of Game 6 in a 3-2 win.
It only promoted the notion that home ice just hasn’t been kind to the majority of teams in the NHL playoffs so far.
But the Rangers are hoping that trend stops tonight. New York has never lost a Game 7 at Madison Square Garden.
New York battled back in Game 6 thanks to Derek Stepan’s power play goal and two assists.
“I got a little of a monkey off my back,” he said after the game. “I was having a tough time scoring. It was a relief to find the back of the net. Not only that, the power play gets a boost from it, too.”
Chris Kreider took one of those assists for what was the game-winner in the second period, scoring the first goal of his career.
Henrik Lundqvist, a finalist for the Vezina Trophy has stopped 179 of 190 shots for a brilliant save percentage of .942. That’s after he put up a 1.97 goals against average during the regular season and won a career-best 39 games. Bovada’s NHL Player Props page is expecting more of the same tonight.
“Mentally, you just try to block everything you can’t control. Just control your emotion and focus on the right things,” Lundqvist told the Associated Press. “So far, home advantage hasn’t really played out that well for anybody, but hopefully our crowd can be the difference and help us push our game here and get some confidence right away.
“There’s no better feeling than to win at home, so we’re going to do whatever we can to win this game.”
Home teams are 17-28 throughout the playoffs so far.
New York coach John Tortorella and forward Brad Richards was part of the Tampa Bay Lightning team that won a pair of game 7s en route to their Stanley 
Cup Championship in 2004. Richards was named MVP of the playoffs that year.
“I think it calms down a lot of guys to have guys that have been part of things like this,” Lundqvist said of Richards. “all year he has stepped up at critical moments, and it just shows you what kind of player he really is. Hopefully he can keep that going.”
Bovada is favoring the Rangers by 1 1/2 goals with a -165 moneyline.