WASHINGTON — No illusions, no delusions.
This is the way it ends for the Black-and-Blueshirts.
It ends in a five-game, first-round defeat to the superior Capitals two weeks to the day after claiming the conference’s eighth and final playoff spot, one year after failing to claim the East’s final spot on the final day of that season.
It ends with the team that finished 18th overall in the NHL regular-season becoming the second team to leave the playoffs, though at least the Rangers, unlike the previously eliminated Coyotes, are assured of returning to their home city next season.
It ends with the recognition that while the spirit was more than willing from start to finish, the accompanying skill level never reached a standard that would have allowed this group of committed athletes to break through what is a relatively modest ceiling.
The song lied: you need more than miles and miles of heart.
The Rangers competed yesterday, refusing to go quietly into the dark summer night. Even in the face of a first-period onslaught against Henrik Lundqvist in which the Capitals had 36 attempts to New York’s 12. Even when Dan Girardi missed most of the first period with a gruesome dislocated finger and badly bruised ankle.
Of course they did. That’s who they are.
They controlled much of the second period, sticking to the program, fighting on, even when a single breathtaking Alex Ovechkin rush accomplished more than 15 minutes of identifiable Rangers hockey.
But it was not enough to produce more than the good try of a series-ending, 3-1 defeat to this talented Washington team committed to reversing its miserable postseason fortunes.
Challenged all year by a paucity of upper-echelon talent that was exacerbated by Marian Gaborik’s walkabout of a season during which the sniper either could not remember who he was or thought he was supposed to try to be someone else (though No. 10 did lift his game as this series evolved), the Rangers could not overcome the loss of Ryan Callahan, who missed this series with a broken ankle he sustained blocking a Zdeno Chara shot late in the 80th game of the season.
This is not an excuse for the Rangers, good gracious it isn’t. Injuries are part of it. Injuries to stars are part of it and are not only meant to be overcome, they can be overcome the way the 2001 Avalanche won the Cup in a seven-game Final against the Devils even though Peter Forsberg missed the entire series with a ruptured spleen.
Rather, the impact created by the absence of Callahan, who not only is the personification of the blue-collar identity the club embraced this season but the team’s best player, only served to illustrate the inadequate amount of select talent behind him.
There was nobody for coach John Tortorella to call on to fill the hole, no reasonable facsimile of this captain-in-waiting.
The Penguins have been and are playing without Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. The Flyers have been and are playing without Chris Pronger (and now Jeff Carter), but a very good case can be made that the loss of Callahan was the most devastating blow any team sustained going into the playoffs.
No excuse, only a reflection of how much work there is in front of general manager Glen Sather to do to build up from the foundation of work ethic and transform the Rangers into a team to be reckoned with, one that could surmount the loss of its first-line right wing.
The Rangers did themselves proud in this season that was marked by blocked shots, broken bones and shared sacrifice. The Rangers made their fans proud, no small achievement in this era of franchise baby steps and extraordinary ticket prices.
There were three victories in Pittsburgh and the shootout victory on the penultimate weekend in Philadelphia. There were the two victories in Boston, the two regular-season victories in Washington, the team’s fortitude through a winter stretch during which injuries ravaged the lineup, the closing 11-4-1 run, and last Sunday’s Game 3 heroics from Brandon Dubinsky.
Good stuff, all of it good stuff, to borrow one of the coach’s favorite phrases.
The Rangers made it back to the playoffs after a one-year absence. But no further than Game 5 of the first round.
That’s as it should be.