Michael Del Zotto, Alexei Ponikarovsky and their teams take the fight to Newark tomorrow for Game 6. (Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post)
This is not so much about the Rangers recreating history that never truly can be recreated. It is more about staying alive by winning one hockey game tomorrow night.
This is not about what happened on May 25, 1994, in Game 6 at the Meadowlands, neither is it about Mark Messier’s bold guarantee that blared across the Post’s Back Page that morning, and neither it is about what happened at the Garden two days after that.
The Rangers do need a hero, that much most certainly is true, but this group isn’t about to reach 18 years into the past, for one, and coach John Tortorella won’t even want to hear about it.
Because it’s not about that at all for the Rangers, who lost an excruciating 5-3 Game 5 at the Garden to the Devils last night to fall behind 3-2 in the Eastern Conference finals, even if it may be just a little bit about that to Martin Brodeur, the lone constant between then and now and the surviving symbol of a feud reborn on the Hudson.
“This situation is what creates history,” Brodeur said after outlasting Henrik Lundqvist in the most compelling, entertaining and most unpredictable match of the series. “Whatever happens in the next few days is what this rivalry is all about.”
No one could have predicted that Lundqvist essentially would fail to make a save with the Rangers just two victories from advancing to the Stanley Cup Finals, and yet, that’s the fate that befell the King, who allowed goals on three consecutive shots within a span of 7:06 to put his team in a 3-0 hole just 9:49 into the match.
No one would then have predicted that the Rangers, who actually had come out of the chute playing smashmouth hockey even as one puck after another found their way into their net, would respond with the team’s most compelling 40 minutes of the series, dominating in the corners, on the boards and in open ice to climb entirely out of the hole at 0:17 of the third when Marian Gaborik took advantage of a Brodeur puck-handling gaffe. Yet that’s what happened.
But even as the Garden echoed with taunts of “Marty … Marty … Marty …” that’s where it stopped for the Rangers, who became a bit more cautious, and yielded the game-winner with 4:24 remaining in regulation when Ryan Carter took advantage of a significant coverage breakdown to convert Stephen Gionta’s centering feed from the right corner.
“I thought we had the puck and I didn’t see their guy come back door,” said Lundqvist, who yielded four goals on 16 shots before Zach Parise sealed it with an empty-netter. “I needed to look around in case something happened, and I didn’t.”
That essentially was the theme of the night: Lundqvist didn’t, or couldn’t. It was one of those games in which the puck just didn’t seem to hit him, one of those games that has happened to Brodeur, that has happened to the best of them throughout NHL playoff history.
“It’s just really disappointing because you want to be there for the team,” Lundqvist said. “It’s just very disappointing because we did so many good things.”
The Rangers shredded the Devils’ forecheck. They got the puck down low and went to work on New Jersey’s defense. They created turnovers and generated speed through the neutral zone. They got a relentless performance from Ryan Callahan, goals from the captain, Gaborik and Brandon Prust … and they lost, nevertheless.
“Obviously we’re not happy. It’s not rocket science,” Dan Girardi said. “But I think we took a step in the right direction to playing our hockey.
“We took the body, we had pressure on them and put them on their heels. We just have to take the positives and build off that for the next game.”
If there is history to which the Rangers will refer as they prepare for Game 6, it’s not the one from 18 years ago, but the one from last month, when the Blueshirts went to Ottawa trailing the first round 3-2 before winning that potential elimination Game 6 on the road then Game 7 at the Garden.
“We’ve just got to win one road game,” Callahan said. “We’ve been in this situation before.”
They were in this situation last month. They were in this situation 18 years ago.
And so was Brodeur.
larry.brooks@nypost.com