How the Rangers can win Game 2

Gerard Gallant got to sleep at about 2:30 on Wednesday morning, which, all things considered, could have been worse. If he was fighting through exhaustion following the Rangers’ 4-3 playoff-opening defeat in triple overtime, the coach hid it well.

The only demonstrable shift was the Rangers didn’t practice on Wednesday after they played 105:51 of hockey the previous night. They are still confident in what got them here, well aware that they outplayed Pittsburgh for the first chunk of Game 1 and trying to figure out how to make that sustainable through Game 2.

“For whatever reason, it happens,” Gallant said. “But it shouldn’t be that much of a difference [between] being excellent for 25 minutes and then not being good.”

If the Rangers are to make that leap on Thursday in what amounts to a must-win game before the series goes to Pittsburgh, here’s what they have to do.