They have won nine playoff series and 46 postseason games since the start of the 2012 tournament, more series than anyone other than Chicago and Los Angeles and more games than anyone other than the Blackhawks. I respect the hell out of the Rangers for what they’ve done and how they’ve carried themselves over the last six years.
But enough.
Enough of playing the experience card.
Better to play with urgency, discipline and attention to detail.
Because the truth of the matter is that every single experience has ended the same way.
In defeat.
If experience were determinative, wouldn’t it have been the Blueshirts, and not the Senators, to score a late third-period tie-breaking winner in Game 1? Wouldn’t the Rangers have been able to close out Games 2 and 5 in which they held one-goal leads with under two minutes to play before losing each in overtime?
Maybe Alain Vigneault was simply engaging in a declaration of confidence in his veterans when the coach cited experience as a major factor in advance of Tuesday’s potential elimination Game 6 against the Senators at the Garden.
Maybe it would have been downright loco for him to dismiss that as a consideration when asked if all those games and all those situations this New York nucleus has confronted would be advantageous.But all this talk about experience — and the 72 hours-plus between the end of Game 5 and the opening faceoff of Game 6 affords much time to talk — reminds me of the prelude to Game 7 of the 2015 conference finals against Tampa Bay, in which the Blueshirts’ 6-0 record in such ultimate matches at home beginning in 2012 was recited as a mantra.
Lightning coach Jon Cooper shrugged it off while inviting the Rangers to bring it on when he said: “They have not done it against our group. That hasn’t happened against us. Everything is in the past.”
Final score: Tampa Bay 2, Rangers 0.
One can imagine that is Ottawa coach Guy Boucher’s message approaching this contest in which a victory would send his team to the conference finals for the first time since the 2007 Cup final defeat to Anaheim and for only the third time in the franchise’s 25-year history.
This Game 6 is not about the past and it is not about the future, either, though defeat would be accompanied by consequences, of that there is no doubt. This Game 6 is about the present, about what the athletes are doing on the ice in real time, not what they might have done two, three or five years ago or might be able to do down the line.
Of course, this is an eminently winnable game for the Rangers, who have looked sharp in winning their last four at the Garden beginning with Game 4 of the first-round Montreal series. And this remains an eminently winnable series for the Blueshirts, who have been outplayed by the Senators only in brief bursts, but have not done enough to take charge when it has been theirs for the taking.
“I don’t think we were bad in Game 5, I just don’t think we were as sharp as we needed to be,” Derek Stepan told The Post. “I think we were average, and you can’t be average at this time of year.
“We cannot afford to play that way again.”
The Rangers this series have been unable to duplicate the combination of emotion and execution they consistently reached over the final three games against the Canadiens. True, they dominated Games 3 and 4 of this round at MSG, but those were a pair of nolo contendere affairs in which the Senators’ swords turned into plowshares within minutes of each match. The Senators are sure to present more of a threat in this one.
And while Vigneault can extol the virtues of his veterans’ experience all he wants, he must coach to the moment. Credit where credit is due, but there are no credit cards for elimination games. If Oscar Lindberg is the best center, then he must get commensurate ice time. If Michael Grabner continues to light it up, then No. 40 once and for all should get power-play time. If Jimmy Vesey plays with the same effectiveness and swagger as he did in Game 5, then Vigneault needs to ride the young man from Harvard. If Brady Skjei is outplaying his elders, then by all means, the coach needs to dole out heaps of ice time to the rookie.
This is about now, not last week and not three playoff runs ago when the Blueshirts made it all the way to the Cup final.
Which they lost.