This is where the Devils’ hope dies, in a subdued Garden on a lazy Sunday afternoon in April at the hands of the hated Rangers.
With the Blueshirts coming out on the better end of a 4-1 result, the Devils are now officially eliminated from the playoffs just 10 months after losing to the Kings in the Stanley Cup finals. It is the first time since 2007 a Cup finalist failed to make the playoffs the following year.
And the Rangers are now incrementally closer to wrapping up a postseason spot, tied in points with the seventh-place Senators (idle Sunday but still with a game in hand) and three points clear of the ninth-place Jets (also idle Sunday). The Rangers have three games remaining, starting Tuesday against the Panthers in Florida.
In what was a poorly officiated game and one that lacked much pace, the Rangers (24-17-4) found a way to get the better of the Devils (17-18-10), mostly behind the two goals from captain Ryan Callahan.
Though they are now 8-2-1 over their past 11 games, the Rangers are still searching for consistent 60-minute performances and some semblance of a functioning power play.
The man-advantage went 1-for-6 over 9:15, including 23 seconds of 5-on-3 time.
Yet when Taylor Pyatt managed to net an even-strength, wide-open wrister from the slot midway through the second, all those concerns didn’t seem too bad as the Blueshirts took a 3-0 lead that would stand up. It was Pyatt’s fourth of the season and his first since Feb. 26 against the Jets.
It was followed early in the third by Callahan’s second of afternoon, a little flip over a sprawled-out Martin Brodeur at the end of a power play.
From there, goalie Henrik Lundqvist did all the work necessary. In his 11th straight start, the only one that got by Lundqvist was a low wrister from Andrei Loktionov late in the third, when the game was already in the hands of the Rangers. The King’s dominance of Brodeur also continued. He came into the game with a regular-season head-to-head record of 23-7-5 against the Devils’ future Hall of Famer, including a 1.77 goals-against average and a .933 save percentage.
The Rangers didn’t waste much time in getting out to a lead, with 34 seconds having elapsed when Callahan took advantage of the Devils’
over-pursuit behind their own net. Both Devils defensemen, Marek Zidlicky and Peter Harrold, went after Carl Hagelin, and when he got the puck back to Callahan, the wrap-around was open and the captain notched his 13th of the season off the skate of an unsuspecting Brodeur.
That started the first of the “Marty! Marty!” chants from the Garden faithful, a collective ribbing of Brodeur reminiscent of last season’s heated Eastern Conference finals matchup, which the Devils won in overtime of Game 6.
With some horrid officiating and four ugly and unsuccessful Rangers power plays, the Blueshirts made it 2-0 with eight minutes remaining in the first on a great tip-in by Derek Stepan off a Ryan McDonagh wrist shot from the point. It was Stepan’s 16th of the season, which puts him three behind Rick Nash for the team lead.
bcyrgalis@nypost.com