HOT TIME: The Devils’ Ilya Kovalchuk celebrates his first-period goal with teammates David Clarkson (left) and Dainius Zubrus last night. (
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John Tortorella has seen his team grow, but by no means is he happy with the way their season ended.
Last night at the Prudential Center, his Rangers lost to the Devils in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals, 3-2 in overtime, ending the Blueshirts’ season and sending the Devils to the Stanley Cup finals against the Kings.
“We’re still a young club and we still have quite a bit to learn as far as the desperation when you get to this third round,” Tortorella said. “You hear it so much, and I won’t accept it. You know, you won a couple of rounds. You got into the third round.
“That isn’t good enough. We still have to find a way to win another round and get there.”
Earlier in the day, Tortorella was asked about how much his team has learned by playing seven games in each of the first two rounds, a grueling stretch of hockey for a team that plays a bare-knuckled style which could be difficult to sustain.
“You want to try to write things out the right way to have an easier road going through,” Tortorella said. “But when you don’t — and as we’ve gone through the playoffs we’ve had some things we’ve had to accomplish in some tough ways — I think it’s really good for the team, not only in the present but the future as far as where we’re going.”
* The Rangers’ leading scorer in the regular season, Marian Gaborik, was held to one goal in this series — in Game 5 on a stick-handling blunder by Martin Brodeur — and said, “It’s definitely a big disappointment.”
Gaborik struggled to gain any offensive traction as the time and space for him shrunk with the tighter playoff style. He finished with five goals in 20 playoff games, and did not want to use fatigue as an excuse.
“I don’t think that was the case at all,” Gaborik said. “We were confident going into the series and it had nothing to do with it.”
* Brandon Dubinsky played his second game in a row, again bumping John Mitchell from the lineup. Dubinsky had been sidelined with a right leg/foot injury that kept him out since Game 7 of the opening round against the Senators.
He finished the game with 16:28 of ice time and had two shots while skating on an assertive line with Artem Anisimov and Ryan Callahan.
Rangers defenseman Steve Eminger dressed for the third time in the past four games, replacing Stu Bickel.
Reminiscent of the way Tortorella treated Bickel in the three-overtime game against the Capitals in the second round, Eminger spent a total of 2:06 on ice, playing three shifts in the first period and one in the second. He didn’t see the ice past the 12:44 mark in the second period.