Sad ending to a once-promising hockey postseason for Rangers and Islanders
New York Rangers defenseman Jacob Trouba (8) and Niko Mikkola (77) react amongst teammates after being defeated by the New Jersey Devils in Game 7 of their first-round playoff series on Monday in Newark, N.J. Credit: AP/Adam Hunger
That’s it?
No semifinal-round tussle with the Lightning, for the first time since 2019?
Not even a distant glance at the Stanley Cup, for two teams loaded with experience and trying to keep their championship doors ajar?
Not so much as a second-round visit, marking the first time since 1978 that both the Rangers and Islanders qualified for the playoffs and lost in the first round?
1978! Phil Esposito led the Rangers with 81 points that season. Chico Resch led Islanders goalies with 28 wins.
Now Esposito is a Tampa Bay Lightning radio analyst and Resch is a New Jersey Devils radio analyst, and only one of them will be working in the second round.
What a downer of a hockey fortnight.
All the Rangers and Islanders had to do was win one round to generate a second-round series against each other – something we have not seen since 1994.
Now they can get together for a golf tournament against each other if they wish.
It was fun for a while. One team or the other played on 13 of 15 days. One team or the other played a game in the immediate metropolitan area on 10 of 14 days.
It was a hockey festival, and fans turned out in force, from Elmont to Manhattan to Newark, to enjoy the spectacle.
But now it’s over, at least on the eastern side of the Hudson.
While it is true the Rangers and Islanders began their series against the Devils and Hurricanes as underdogs, it also is true their seasons were aiming for this time of year and their rosters were constructed for it.
These were not the Devils, a rising team mostly happy to be there. These were tournament-tested teams full of grown men capable of bushy playoff beards.
What went wrong? Those matters are being discussed behind closed doors this week as both franchises decide the directions of their immediate futures.
Will Lou Lamoriello and Lane Lambert still be in charge with the Islanders? Will Gerard Gallant keep his job with the Rangers?
The fact the Knicks still are playing will deflect some of the media glare from the two hockey franchises.
But hockey fans know. These are pivot points for the Islanders and Rangers.
To illustrate the point:
The longest-tenured Islander, Josh Bailey, could not secure a game-day uniform during the playoffs.
The longest-tenured Ranger, Chris Kreider, scored six goals against the Devils – more than a third of the team’s total for the series – but after a 4-0 loss in Game 7 on Monday night sat slumped at his locker and blamed himself for the outcome.
This was the day after Kreider’s 32nd birthday, making him one of many hockey stars around here with career clocks that are ticking louder by the year.
The Islanders are in the worse position of the two, likely in need of a rebuild, which is something Lamoriello does not believe in and something that will not fill the seats in gleaming, expensive new UBS Arena.
The Rangers need an attitude adjustment, apparently. They seemed to be headed in the right direction in 2021 when ownership shocked most of the league with a regime change designed in part to make the team grittier.
It worked through a run to last year’s conference finals and for most of the 2022-23 regular season.
But against the Devils, the Rangers lost their way, getting outsmarted and outhustled by a fast opponent they could not or would not slow down.
Gallant was unsparing in his criticism of his top stars during the series, up to and including this from after Game 7: “I love to have talent, but you love to have a work ethic and more forecheck and stuff like that, and we just didn’t get it done.”
Ouch.
Down the hall the Devils were enjoying a celebration befitting a franchise that last won a playoff series in 2012 – against the Rangers.
“You don’t know how many kicks at the can you’re going to get,” Rangers captain Jacob Trouba said.
“Tomorrow’s never given, especially in this league. It definitely stinks. It feels like we let an opportunity slip away. That’s hockey.”
Fair enough. But we were supposed to get more of it this year.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
