But there was Devils defenseman John Marino, surrounded by reporters in front of his locker room stall moments after a 2-1 overtime win in Game 3 at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, pondering that exact thought.
"We had a long meeting about the penalty kill]*
The Rangers' top power-play unit consists of Adam Fox at the point, Artemi Panarin and Patrick Kane in the circles, Mika Zibanejad in the bumper position, and Chris Kreider in front.
In particular, it was Kreider who was causing the most problems for New Jersey. He has scored all four of New York's power-play goals in the series, each coming via a redirection or tip in.
However, New Jersey found the answers for that on Saturday, resulting in a 5-for-5 effort on the penalty kill with only six shots on net.
"You always learn something from every situation," Devils coach Lindy Ruff said. "Like I said after Game 2, we had some blown assignments. I thought we didn't miss many assignments in Game 3. We did a great job on their entries, so I think that frustrated them a little bit where you don't get to spend much time. We did make some adjustments which you have to make from game to game, and I'm pretty sure they'll look at the same and say we got to maybe try this or relieve some pressure this way (in Game 4)."
New Jersey's best penalty killer, of course, was goalie Akira Schmid, who made 35 saves his Stanley Cup Playoff debut. The 22-year-old was the third rookie to start a playoff game in New Jersey history, joining Sean Burke (1988) and Hockey Hall of Famer Martin Brodeur (1994).
"Zibanejad in the middle had a couple good looks on the power play, but I think we did a good job trying to cut off passing lanes and just stay in shot lanes," Schmid said.
In addition to going with Schmid over Vitek Vanecek, who started Games 1 and 2, Ruff also inserted Curtis Lazar into the lineup for Game 3 with the intention of giving him a big role on the penalty kill. The 28-year-old forward, who was acquired in a trade with the Vancouver Canucks on March 3, responded, finishing the game with four hits and one block in 9:48 of ice time, 3:01 of which came while short-handed.
"It all comes down to a few feet here and there, heads on a swivel, stick position and stuff like that," Lazar said. "We were able to clean that up ... that compete, that battle, getting pucks down 200 feet. We talk about being comfortable in those situations, and what a great opportunity for us, and it was a great feeling to come out on top."
Said Ruff: "Lazar's another veteran guy that has some experience, plays really hard, and is good with the puck. He's disciplined, so we were taking out a penalty killer (Yegor Sharangovich) and we put another penalty killer in, another face-off guy we thought could help us out. I thought he gave us good minutes."
Now, the goal is to replicate that performance in Game 4 in order to even the series before it heads back to New Jersey.
"For sure we did video work, but video was always there," Devils captain Nico Hischier said. "I think it was more about executing. We didn't execute enough in the first two games, and obviously we got some more video, but it wasn't anything new. It was just more about coming down to executing it."
