This is easily the hardest post to make every single year, especially with how deep of a run the New York Rangers had, one which had them just three wins shy of hoisting the Stanley Cup.
“You get this far … and you do so much … and you come up short …” defenseman Marc Staal said, half-heartedly pawing at the tape around his ankles. “And it just … Ah. It just hurts.”
“We played some good hockey, I think we can be proud of that,” defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. “But they were relentless. They kept coming, kept pushing, and made us focus for every second you were on the ice. But I thought we played pretty good, too.”
“We fell short,” center Derick Brassard whispered. “We can talk about how hard we played and how much we made them work for this, but in the end that’s all that matters. We fell short.”
That’s what the record books will note: a 4-1 series win for the Kings that will sure look a hell of a lot easier than it really was. And maybe that’s as it should be: As Bill Parcells famously said, there are no medals for trying in pro sports.
No medals, but there are memories. Rangers fans cherish them, and they will cherish this team, in time, put them on a shelf with the 1972 team and the 1979 near-misses. For now, the 1994 team still stands alone. Twenty years on, they are still the gold standard.
Thirty-five minutes after falling short of that plateau, the Rangers slowly began to peel off their uniforms. It was time. It was terrific. But it was over.