Regional Sports

Why take the Rangers seriously about winning championship again?

The hockey experts and Rangers fans thought the Rangers’ matchup against the Senators would be a slam dunk in favor of the Rangers. They cited the Rangers had a better roster than their counterpart.

That may be true, but in the end, the Senators played like a better team than the Rangers in the Eastern Conference semifinals, and that’s why they advanced Tuesday night after a 4-2 victory over the Rangers to end the series in six games.

For the Rangers, it was another year of disappointment and unfulfilled promises. It’s been like this for the last six years. Not only it becomes numb after awhile, but it is like watching a trainwreck to see the Rangers in the playoffs. Quite frankly, it’s hilarious to see less superior teams such as the Devils, Bruins Kings, Penguins and now the Senators defy the odds to beat the heavy favorite Rangers in the playoffs over the years. It never gets old.

It makes one wonder what’s the point of watching the Broadway Blueshirts when they find ways to fall short of Stanley Cup championship expectations year in and year out. It’s seven years now that they haven’t gotten it done. If they can’t get it done now, they never will get it done. They can only have so many chances. It could just be this core of players are not good enough to win a Stanley Cup.

More and more, losing to the Kings in the 2014 Stanley Cup Final symbolizes the Rangers were so close but so far. That was the year they should have won the Cup. They led in Games 1, 2 and 5, but they blew leads and lost to the Kings. It was a blown opportunity that the Rangers still rue to this day.

The Rangers may not get that opportunity again. Their core players are getting older, which includes Henrik Lundqvist being 35 years old. It seems like the Rangers are getting worse instead of getting better. This team has showed no signs of hope that they can get it done.

This town did not even get excited about the Rangers in the first place. The approach was wait-and-see with this team this season. Not even beating the Canadiens in the first round was exciting the masses. Now if the Rangers advanced to the Eastern Conference final, there would be high hopes from the Rangers fans.

Everything went wrong with the Blueshirts in their series against the Senators. Lundqvist was below average. Chris Kreider, Mats Zuccarello, Jimmy Vesey, Ryan McDonagh, J.T. Miller, Derek Stepan and Rick Nash played like garbage. Rangers head coach Alain Vigneault was outcoached by his counterpart Guy Boucher in which the Senators outplayed, outworked and outhustled the Rangers.

To say the Rangers outplayed the Senators is a joke. If that was the case, the Rangers would have won. They did nothing to earn wins against the Senators. Their defense played like Keystone Cops, and their forwards had a hard time solving the Senators’ neutral zone trap. It was hard to come up with a game where the Rangers dominated the Senators.

The Rangers players admitted that they did not get it done and they performed below expectations against the Senators. Some even admitted that they did not give it their all. Encouraging, eh.

It’s easy to blame Lundqvist. He is the team’s best player by being the difference maker in the Rangers’ wins and losses.  He has a history of coming up small in big games, and this series against the Senators was no different. He deserves to be savaged, but blaming him is too easy.

Vigneault earned criticism for not having his players ready to play against the Senators. Why did it take until the third period for the Rangers to play with desperation against the Senators in an elimination game? This should have been started early in the game. Also, it seemed he had no answers for his players to break the trap. He also has to answer to why his core players are getting worse in the playoffs in his last two seasons.

The Rangers counted on Kreider, Zuccarello, Miller and Stepan to be impact players in the playoffs as they gained experience. They haven’t showed they can get it done time after time. Rick Nash was a lost cause long time ago. He is nothing more than a regular season player at best. Come playoff time, he is unreliable, so it’s not surprising he was a non-factor against the Senators.

The Rangers can go analyze what went wrong for the umpteenth summer in a row.  They can talk about how they can get better. They can talk about potential or whatever. That’s all good, but these are all false promises.

Seven years have come and pass. There’s no reason to believe in the Rangers anymore until they actually hoist Lord Stanley around the ice. They have lost the trust of the Rangers fans for good reason.

If the Rangers did not win the Stanley Cup in 1994, it would be a Red Sox-like championship drought for this frustrating franchise.

Then again, 1994 might as well be 1940 after watching disappointments year after year.

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3 Comments

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