There is hockey and there are the Rangers. They are preceded around these parts by only the Yankees and Giants. In two years it will be a century. They are a legacy team. But that’s part of the issue, isn’t it?
The legacy every Rangers team inherits is 1994, the way that Rangers teams leading up to that exception to the rule inherited the legacy of 1940.
The legacy can become a burden. The weight of all those seasons gone wrong can crush teams. It took 54 years last time. It is at 30 now.
But what I have learned, and learned again this week, is that the 2023-24 Rangers do not feel weighed down by franchise history. They are not running away from the narrative. Indeed, they are cherishing the opportunity to party like 1994. They want to stand side by side with the team that is etched in the city’s fabric for all time.
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Mark Messier was loud about the mission when he arrived from Edmonton in 1991. This team’s captain, Jacob Trouba, keeps it more quiet. But in the flush of his team’s emotional Game 6 victory in Carolina on Thursday, you could hear echoes, maybe faint ones but nevertheless, of No. 11 coming out of No. 8’s mouth.
“Everyone is aware of history, but I think you can say the same thing about the last team that won the Stanley Cup here, I think there was a bit of a drought,” Trouba told The Post in Raleigh, N.C., after Chris Kreider’s all-time third period. “They took it on and they won.
“Someone’s got to do it. You can wait around all day for someone to do it, or you can step up and be that next team. We want to be that team.”
The Rangers are preparing for a head-on collision in the conference final with the Puddy Tats of Florida, who are ferocious as opposed to the Candy Canes of Carolina’s relentlessness. This best-of-seven that opens at the Garden on Wednesday will feature high-end hockey. It will be best-on-best.
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And this will represent the Rangers’ second appearance in the conference final in three years and fifth over the past 13 postseasons beginning with 2012. There is only one other team in the league to advance to the NHL’s final four that many times — Tampa Bay, a conference finalist seven times over that stretch.
Of course, the Lightning have a pair of Stanley Cups to show for their success. Of course, the Rangers have none for their failure. I mean, that’s what it is, right? A failure and not a success when you haven’t won in decades again?
That’s kind of what the 15-4 record in potential elimination games from 2012-15 reflects, right? It’s kind of like looking into a fun-house mirror. Success would mandate that a numeral smaller than “4” appear on the back end of the equation.
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The Rangers won the first seven of this tournament, lost Game 4 then pulled a collective no-show in Game 5 at the Garden that seemed as if the team had packed its 30-year drought into 60 minutes. It was like a lot of January and February. It kind of felt like a lot more than that. It felt like it was about everything that had come before it.
The Panthers failed to clinch at home against Boston in Game 5, and Dallas failed to clinch at home against Colorado in Game 5 (before both clinching on the road the following match), but there are Rorschach tests all around the Rangers, and when folks saw this Game 5 at the Garden on Tuesday, they could swear they were seeing Games 4, 5 and 7 of last year’s debacle against New Jersey.
The Rangers, rather than the Canes, seemed on the verge of extinction in advance of Game 6. They’d lost two potential clinchers. They were being reminded of their history at every opportunity. But it never got to the inside. It never infiltrated the hug, I mean, huddle.
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“I think I might be somewhat aware of it,” head coach Peter Laviolette said when asked about the history that confronts his team. “Having not been here, I can only tell you the story of what’s gone on this year, what we’ve seen this year from this group.
“But understanding a little bit of that history, I’m pretty honest with what I see in a game, and I thought we played a pretty good game in Game 4 and were way off the mark in Game 5. At that point, maybe what you’re saying can sneak it or slide in.
“But instead, when we had our backs against the wall going into that third period, the players in that room delivered against a pretty good hockey team.”
Follow The Post’s coverage of the Rangers in the NHL playoffs
- Playoff-tested Panthers will be Rangers’ biggest challenge yet
- The constant Rangers advantage they’ll carry into Eastern Conference Finals
- Brooks: Rangers cherishing chance to create their own 1994-like legacy
- Vaccaro: Why this Rangers’ playoff run just got even sweeter
There is trust within this team. They have earned a fair measure of trust, as well. Institutionally, the franchise has not earned the benefit of the doubt. But this team has. It did all season. The 2023-24 Rangers are not prisoners of their past.
I asked Mika Zibanejad, a Ranger since 2016 and second in seniority only to Kreider, if he did feel burdened by the weight of history, and he answered the way Adam Graves or Steve Larmer or Brian Leetch would have back in their day.
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“Obviously you see it, you hear people talk about it, but I don’t think it’s a burden, it’s more of a motivation to want to experience what they did,” No. 93 said in speaking directly to 1994. “Seeing all the videos, seeing everything, just hearing people talk about it …
“Everyone knows where they were at that moment — what they were doing, what they were eating, what they were drinking [when the Rangers won the Cup]. So it’s something that everyone in here wants to experience.
“We know it’s a hard road to get there, a long way still, but it’s definitely motivation for us.”
There is hockey and there are the Rangers. They count in this city. They are an Original Six. They are a legacy team. The 2023-24 Rangers are determined to create a legacy of their own.
