The Rangers are the first Presidents' Trophy team since, well, the Rangers a decade ago to get to the third round of the playoffs. What have they done that other winners haven't?
The Rangers are the first Presidents' Trophy team since, well, the Rangers a decade ago to get to the third round of the playoffs. What have they done that other winners haven't?
The recent history of the NHL is chock full of teams that were juggernauts in the regular season, only to fall flat on their faces in the playoffs. The 2023-24 New York Rangers are not one of those teams.
In fact, they're the first team to both finish first overall and get to a conference final since they did it themselves in 2014-15. It leads a lot of people to believe there is a Presidents' Trophy curse.
Actually, it's more a reflection of the parity that exists and the fact that the Stanley Cup is the most difficult trophy to win in all professional sport. Whether you finish first, third, 10th or 15 overall, you need everything to fall into place for two months to win. And that's what has happened with the Rangers. Even Chris Kreider's natural hat trick to come back and win Game 6 showed signs of former captain Mark Messier doing the same in 1994 en route to winning the Stanley Cup.
We'll see if they can keep it going in Round 3.
Here's more:
Get the latest news and trending stories right to your inbox by subscribing to The Hockey News newsletter here.