BUST! Yeah, all along; from October through May, the Rangers mantra was "STANLEY CUP – OR BUST!" On June 1 the answer remained the same for New York's Cup pretenders – BUST! There are two National Hockey League seasons – regular and the one that really counts. Going on 31 years now, the Rangers are not good enough to win the one season that really counts, and take the Stanley Cup. The Panthers proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt last night with a 3-2 victory at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise. They beat the Blueshirts every which way and – in this final game – even in goal. Yes, Sergei Bobrovsky was better than Prince Igor. Stan Fischler US Hall Of Fame MSG "We were right there," says Jacob Trouba, "we just came up short." The Captain – one of the absolute worst of the Rangers – is wrong! Dead wrong!! Trouba and his mates were outplayed in every single one of the six games "Team Resilience" now has to be renamed "Team Close-But-No-Cigar." That's for the second straight year; only now, with Gerard Gallant gone, Peter Laviolette is the one delivering the sad homilies. "It's disappointing," says Laviolette. "You do it to go all the way." A major reason why the Rangers couldn't reach the Final round is that Lavvy was out-coached by Maurice from the get-go. Only outstanding goaltending provided by Igor Shesterkin kept his club on life support. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXgxMPpRKZo[/embed] The culprits were many but mostly up front. The "Murderer's Row" of Chris Kreider, Artemi Panarin and Mike Zibanejad proved an egregious failure. New York's "core" followed the same script as Toronto's constant-failure-trio of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander. For the second straight year, regular season sensation Panarin abysmally bailed. Ditto for his linemates. "Florida got to its game more consistently than we did," says Kreider. "They were dialed in on what they were doing. They broke the puck out 99 percent of the time on the strong side." And speaking of "strong," the Panthers owned the boards and they did so because they had players like Sam (First Goal) Bennett who's a latter-day version of onetime Conn Smythe Trophy-winner Claude Lemieux. All hands agreed that if the Rangers could stretch the series to a seventh game it would be decided by Shesterkin's goaltending. He was close to being his usual frugal self last night, but allowing two Florida goals was one too many. "He was our main man all season," said Kreider, "but he couldn't do it alone." It was a 2-0 game down until late in the third period when Shesty was pulled for an extra forward and Panarin finally delivered his too-little-too late goal. Shesterkin closed with a 2.25 goals against average and .935 save percentage – impressive but "no cigar." Former "Rental" Ranger Vlad Tarasenko planted the second – turned out to be good insurance – goal in the third before Breadman's freshly-baked rye made it close. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DNupJ3Dmvw[/embed] Looking backward, it's fair to say that The Maven – among others – overestimated the Blueshirts. That fooled me. That and the mistaken comparisons to the Messier Cup champion 1994 squad. It got me dreaming of a large, silver cup. Veteran Rangers historian and chronicler George Grimm was one who saw through the tinseled "This Is Another 1994 Year" hoopla. George had good radar. "You can't compare this team to Messier's winners," Grimm concludes. "This club wasn't physically and mentally tough enough; nor did it have the will to win!" Those Panthers, who had that "will" in every game, roared their approval in their dressing room celebration with four little words: "WE'RE NOT DONE YET." As for the Broadway Blueshirts, they most assuredly are done. Like burnt toast!
