This wasn’t good enough from the Rangers, not good enough at all to win a conference final Game 5, and divining meaning from the all-but-empty locker room that greeted the press following the match, the Blueshirts must have known it.
It was 2-0 for the Lightning, who played to perfection what the Rangers had every right to consider their own game to nudge the Blueshirts to the precipice of elimination in taking a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series.
The Blueshirts played with passion and jump throughout the first period, but displayed little of either over the final 40 minutes while being stifled by a Lightning in front of an audience as quiet as Chris Kreider, Rick Nash, Derick Brassard, Marty St.