Brian Boyle. (AP)
In order for the Rangers to avoid being victimized by the Senators in an No. 1 vs. No. 8 first-round upset, they must overcome a 3-2 series deficit for just the second time in franchise history, and they apparently will have start on the road back to both Broadway and the second round without Brian Boyle in tomorrow night’s Game 6 in Ottawa.
The 1994 Stanley Cup championship team is the only one in franchise history to accomplish the feat, those Rangers taking the Mark Messier “We’ll Win Tonight” Game 6 of the Eastern finals in New Jersey before the Game 7 double overtime victory that preceded ultimate glory against Vancouver.
John Tortorella announced that Boyle, “is concussed … out” in the wake of an unpenalized shoulder to the head he took from Chris Neil 5:20 into the third period of last night’s 2-0 defeat in Game 5 at Madison Square Garden, a blow the Rangers’ coach likened to Raffi Torres’ infamous hit on Marian Hossa for which the Phoenix winger received a 25-game suspension.
“They’ve got the blueprint, he launches himself, the puck’s [not there], and I’m sure he’s a repeat offender, too, not too much research to be done there,” Tortorella said, though Neil has never before been suspended.
“It’s just a dangerous, dangerous cheap hit. It’s the same play as Torres.”
Boyle, woozy following the blow, had just gotten off a right wing shot before Neil came up high from the blind side with a right shoulder to the head. The center, who has scored the Rangers’ only two even-strength goals in the last four games, somehow took three brief shifts thereafter but did not play the final 6:55.
Carl Hagelin, of course, received a three-game suspension from which he will return tomorrow night after concussing Daniel Alfredsson midway through Game 2. Even if Neil’s hit was not quite a “Torres,” it would be astonishing if Neil isn’t ruled out of the remainder of the series.
Neil, who has made a considerable hockey impact on the series, claimed innocence on the headshot.
“It was a clean hit. He got up, finished the game,” he said. “When you’re coming back, cutting to the middle with your head down, you’ve got to be expecting to get hit.”
Of course. Just like Marc Savard should have expected to be hit in the head by Matt Cooke two years ago after releasing his shot against the Penguins.
The hit, the concussion and the response from Tortorella following the match that Gary Bettman attended (“Wonderful,” the coach said when informed of the commissioner’s presence — and how much does the NHL charge for sarcasm?) almost overshadowed the hole into which the Rangers have fallen after losing two straight to the energized and confident Senators.
The Rangers have been blanked for the last 116:32 by Craig Anderson, who made 41 saves to emerge victorious in a duel with Henrik Lundqvist, beaten only by Jason Spezza’s pinpoint right wing drive at 9:18 of the first before Spezza sealed it with an empty netter at 19:04 of the third.
“I believe we deserved better,” Brad Richards said. “We had the puck a lot and we did a lot of the things we set out to accomplish but just couldn’t score.
“If we play like that in Game 6, we’ll have a pretty good chance to bring it back here for Game 7 [on Thursday].”
The fact, though, is that the power play was deficient, failing on three advantages in the first period and then another in the final seven minutes of the third. The Rangers have scored a sum of five goals since Game 1, three of those with the man advantage.
“I still think we can make it tougher on Anderson by getting more traffic in front of him, and we have to because he likes to challenge,” said Lundqvist, a career 17-23 in the playoffs. “We did a lot of good but it comes down to not having the [scoring] touch.
“Someone needs to step up and score a big goal for us,” he said. “This is far from over.”
larry.brooks@nypost.com