Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, then returned in 1985. His SportsWatch column debuted in 2005.
GREENBURGH, N.Y. — In today’s episode of “Life is Unfair: NHL Playoff Edition,” we consider the New York Rangers, who find themselves on the opposite side of an ongoing debate from where they were this time last year.
They were nowhere then, having been dismissed abruptly in five games by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Penguins.
The reason this did not sit well with many Rangers fans was that their crosstown rivals from Brooklyn strategically avoided that fate by slipping behind the Rangers and into the first Eastern Conference wild-card slot.