It didn’t end like ‘94, but Rangers’ run was one for the books

LOS ANGELES — So now it’s over, and what a wild ride it was.

Sunday was the 20th anniversary of the Rangers’ most recent Stanley Cup title, June 14, 1994 being a day that lives gloriously in franchise history. Yet this incarnation, two decades later, flew home from California in moderate mourning, having fallen three wins short of hoisting that coveted trophy yet again, still that single Cup being raised by the Blueshirts in the past 74 years.

“[We] tried our best,” coach Alain Vigneault said after Game 5 Friday night, when the Kings closed out the Stanley Cup finals with a 3-2 double-overtime victory. “Everybody laid it out there. I’m very proud of our group, very proud of their effort.”

That sentiment goes beyond the finals, but this was a five-game culmination of excitement as the mighty team from the Pacific Coast won its second championship in the past three seasons. In the three games at Staples Center, there were five overtimes necessary, none more excruciating and wonderful than in Game 5, as an extra 34:43 was needed after the third period before Alec Martinez slapped in a rebound and ignited the Kings’ celebration.

“I mean, every inch on the ice was contested real hard,” Vigneault said. “You know, both teams were battling at an unreal level.”

That could be said for the Rangers for most of their postseason run, one that might have been slightly unexpected and yet delivered entertainment throughout.

To think back on the ridiculous training-camp schedule, taking the team from Banff, Alberta, to Vancouver and to Las Vegas, it all seems like a decade ago. There was Vigneault’s slow assimilation behind the bench after taking over for John Tortorella and watching as the team went 3-6 on the season-opening nine-game road trip.

After a big bounce back, the Rangers found themselves with home ice against the Flyers in the first round of the playoffs, a series that was billed as the feistiness of Broad Street versus Broadway, but one that probably was the worst of the whole first round (if not the whole playoffs), with Vigneault drilling home the “whistle-to-whistle” discipline that defined his team’s professionalism throughout.

After needing seven games to get past Philadelphia, the Rangers went to Pittsburgh to take on the Penguins, and were quickly down 3-1. That is when tragedy struck, as Martin St. Louis’ mother, France, died on the eve of Game 5. It proved to be a galvanizing moment for the team — and how many times since then did you hear or read the word galvanizing? — sparking a comeback that had the Rangers win five games in a row, which bridged into the Eastern Conference final against the Canadiens.

That 2-0 lead against the Habs was monumental, with both wins coming in that previous House of Horrors, Bell Centre in Montreal. A war of words began between Vigneault and his counterpart, Michel Therrien, good friends accusing each other of malicious gamesmanship, and eventually the Rangers walking away with a six-game victory.

And that set up the Stanley Cup finals, the first one for the Blueshirts since 1994, and one that ended differently indeed.
“You don’t want to say, ‘Oh, we won the Eastern Conference.’ That’s not what we wanted,” Derick Brassard said. “This is not what we wanted. We wanted to win [the Cup]. I think we had the group to win, and it’s disappointing.”

Surely in the aftermath of such a loss, positive reflection is almost impossible. Many players sat in the locker room with their jerseys and equipment still on well after the game had ended, and an hour afterward, goalie Henrik Lundqvist still sat there, his head in his hands and still wearing his leg pads.

There are many questions that need to be answered this summer, and before training camp starts in September, they will be. For now, there is still the smell of champagne in the California air, and the sound of the arena music rocking the walls of a somber visitors’ locker room.

“There will be a time this summer when you think back to what an amazing ride it was,” said Brad Richards, his looming amnesty buyout the Rangers’ largest question of them all. “It has to be amazing to get this far.”

Amazing it was, and now it’s over. Reflection will come in time, and when it does, there will be more than just disappointment.