Nobody on the Rangers was brash enough to proclaim, “The Devils is dead!” when New Jersey’s team trailed the Blueshirts by 31 points on Jan. 8, the way Brooklyn manager Charlie Dressen announced, “The Giants is dead!” on Aug. 10, 1951, when the Dodgers led those New York Giants by 12½ games and Ralph Branca hadn’t yet begun to warm up.
Nobody on John Tortorella’s button-lipped Rangers would dare offer an assessment of the Devils, who over the first half of the season had been the NHL’s worst team and most dysfunctional operation.
They had their chance, the Rangers did, to dance on the mass grave of the franchise that has won three Stanley Cups since the Rangers won their one in the past 70 years and has finished ahead of Broadway’s team for 13 straight seasons.
They had their chance then and did not take up the oratorical opportunity. They had their chance again last night, and failed again, only this time on the ice in Newark, losing 1-0 to a Devils’ runaway locomotive that has made up 17 points on the Rangers in 17 games.
“They’re in the race,” said Henrik Lundqvist, beaten only by the electrifying Ilya Kovalchuk on a second-period breakaway. “It’s unbelievable, but they’re in the race.”
Make no mistake, not in a million years would the seventh-place Rangers trade places with the 13th-place Devils, who still have miles to go in their unprecedented quest. Not in a million years would the Rangers trade their roster for the Devils’ roster, even if Zach Parise were locked up long-term.
But this much is also true: Even at their best, the Rangers never played to the level the Devils have established in their 14-1-2 stampede. Now, grinding through a stretch in which they have gone 2-6-1 in their past nine and 9-12-2 since Jan. 1, the Rangers aren’t close to their best.
They’re exhausted and beaten up, no longer able to get in on the forecheck and work the cycle game that carried them through the early months They spend too much time defending. They are rarely able to generate a rush attack off a crisp first pass or two, and too often content to simply dump it out and surrender possession.
The Rangers established a Black-and-Blueshirt work ethic early in the season that established a baseline for their success. When Sean Avery jumped Mark Stuart after the Bruins defenseman clobbered Ruslan Fedotenko up high early in the first period in Boston on Oct. 16 and Tortorella lauded the act, the tone had been set.
Teams can win games on tone and work ethic through the first half of the year. The Rangers did. But when the calendar turns to February, everyone who has a chance to be anyone works hard.
That’s when talent becomes a deciding factor. This is when the Rangers would be well served in adding skill to a team loaded with heart but lacking in hands. Failing that, the best players must elevate their game, the way that Kovalchuk has but Marian Gaborik, essentially flying solo, has not.
The season ends in six weeks. If the Rangers are in and the Devils are out when the playoff tournament begins, this New Jersey rampage will become nothing more than a curious footnote to the season.
Know this, though: If this surge continues, if this miracle is made, the Devils will become the biggest sports story of the year.
Behind Joba Chamberlain’s weight, that is.