Do or Die Time, Here We Go

Well the New York Rangers have really stepped in some shit this time... I'll be honest, like most people, I didn't really give this team a chance in this series. Obviously anything's possible in the playoffs and you never know how momentum will swing. And after the first 2 games you'd be an idiot to think the series couldn't have easily been 2-0 the other way. But let's not kid ourselves here. The Rangers played 1 starting goalie through 3 playoff series to get to the cup, and that was Marc Andre Fleury, who happens to be notorious for his horrendous play in the post season, while LA was busy sending home the 3 best teams in the NHL. I'm not trying to say that what this team did was not impressive, because if you told me in October, when Tomas Hertl was going thin mints between his legs on Marty Biron in a 9-2 disaster, that the New York Rangers would play for the Stanley Cup, I would have laughed in your face. But let's be real here.

Now this thing isn't over until the horn sounds at the end of the Kings' 4th win, but anyone with a brain knows it would take a miracle at this point. Maybe they'll find that miracle like they did against Pittsburgh and maybe they won't. Either way, even if the Rangers lose game 4 tonight, in front of their fans, in their building, you have to be happy with this season as a whole. A new coach came in and brought a new system with him, and he took this team further than anyone thought they could go. It's just a damn shame that game 3 went the way it did. Because this series was far closer than anyone will remember in years to come. Sure this might go down as the first sweep in 16 years. Or Kings in 5 after the rangers manage to save one at home. But at the end of the day, the New York Rangers battled the Los Angeles Kings as hard as they could for 2 games in their building, and if not for a couple bounces, this could be a very different series.

Whatever happens tonight will happen, and if they can manage to dig deep and make something out of this mess, that'd be great. But the outcome of game 4 has no effect on what the New York Rangers accomplished this year.