For the last 11 seasons, the Rangers have gone where Henrik Lundqvist has taken them. It will be no different this year.
But here we are, almost one-third into 2016-17 following a 4-2 victory over the Hurricanes at the Garden on Saturday afternoon in which the Blueshirts spent the first 29 minutes committing felonies against hockey aesthetics while being outshot 23-4, and the King’s game hasn’t quite been where it is needed for his team to make noise come spring.
It isn’t as if Lundqvist’s game has broken down. But there are just these shots that seem to go in almost out of nowhere — the 100-foot bouncer in Buffalo on Thursday, for example — when they wouldn’t have a year or two or seven ago.