(Anthony J. Causi)
HUDSON WINNER: Adam Henrique slips in the game-winning goal in overtime (left), setting off a wild celebration (right, below) as the Devils advanced past Henrik Lundqvist and the Rangers and into the Stanley Cup finals. (
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The 18-year-old echo wasn’t loud enough to save the Rangers, who have not reached the Stanley Cup finals since Mark Messier’s Guarantee in 1994.
Instead it’s the Noisy Neighbors, the Devils, finally drowning out that echo, heading to their fifth finals since then, chasing their fourth Cup since the Rangers’ last.
The Rangers were left to mourn the opportunity lost as the East’s top seed, falling to the sixth-seeded Devils in six games with a 3-2 loss last night in the Eastern Conference finals in Newark.
“It’s an empty feeling. It’s a frustrating feeling. It’s a disappointing feeling,” said Henrik Lundqvist after Devils rookie Adam Henrique ended the Rangers’ season with his game-winner 1:03 into overtime.
“I don’t think I understand that it’s over.”
It’s still going strong for the Devils, who own home-ice advantage for the first time in these playoffs when they open the finals against the Kings on Wednesday.
Center stage will be Martin Brodeur, at the age of 40, fresh from exorcising his final demon, Messier and those 1994 Rangers, 18 years to the date that Messier fulfilled his Game 6 guarantee on him.
“We’ve won three Stanley Cups since then, but winning against them on the big stage is not just for me, but for the fans of New Jersey who’ve always taken the second seat,” Brodeur said. “They’re going to be pretty happy, going to work, going to school.
“We made a lot of people really happy by beating them.”
And himself.
“There’s only one guy that likes beating the Rangers more than Marty, and that’s Lou [Lamoriello, the GM],” Devils coach Pete DeBoer said. “Hey, these guys have been through this rivalry for 20 years.”
The Devils never went to the finals through the Rangers, and this was only the second time they have beaten their cross-river rivals in six playoff tries.
Now 18-7 in their last 25 games going back into the regular season, the Devils captured their fifth Prince of Wales Trophy — which no player would touch.
The Devils will be favorites in the finals after finishing with 102 points. The Kings, seeded eighth in the West, had 95. The Kings knocked off Vancouver in five, swept St. Louis and beat Phoenix in five. The Devils needed seven to eliminate Florida and five to kill off the Flyers.
DeBoer and Rangers coach John Tortorella shook hands at the series’ conclusion, despite the heated verbal battles they had this season and in Game 4.
“I feel bad for the club,” Tortorella said. “I thought they played with [moxie] tonight. I thought [the way] it was going to end in overtime, I thought it was going to for us.”
The Devils ousted Tortorella’s Rangers, who finished seven points ahead of them, for their first trip to the finals since their last Cup in 2003. They also won Cups in 1995 and 2000 and lost in the Finals in seven to Colorado in 2001.
They dispelled the haunting memory of 1994 by eliminating the Rangers in their first chance, without having to return to the Garden, where they went 2-1 in this series. They were also 2-1 in Newark, where they stand 6-2 in these playoffs.
The Devils finished off the Rangers with three straight victories, after the Rangers held 1-0 and 2-1 series leads.
“As we played the games, it felt really good every time you beat them,” Dainius Zubrus said. “But now that we did, we’re more happy that we’re going to the finals than we are about beating the Rangers.”
The Spectre of ’94 wasn’t easily dispelled, though. As they did in Game 6 in 1994, the Devils squandered a 2-0 lead.
The Rangers only won in this series when Henrik Lundqvist shut out the Devils, and he wasn’t able to equal the NHL record of three in a series.
Ryan Carter and Ilya Kovalchuk gave the Devils a 2-0 lead in the opening 13:56 of play, Carter scoring his third of the series and Kovalchuk finishing off the Goal of the Season on a five-man, power-play passing gem.
If there was one major Ranger failing, it was that they were outscored 8-1 in the first periods of this series.
The tide turned in the second, and Ruslan Fedotenko started the Rangers back at 9:47, set up for a back-door tap-in by Ryan McDonagh.
Ryan Callahan tied the game 3:54 later, when Dan Girardi’s right-point shot went off his leg in the slot to find the short side on Brodeur.
From then on, it was effectively sudden death until Henrique poked in a rebound for his second series-winning overtime goal.
It ended a Rangers dream and made so very, very real what the Devils can achieve. Again.
mark.everson@nypost.com