The anxiety hung in the Garden like a fog. The Rangers’ season was on the line, a Game 7 hanging in the balance — so close to going home for the summer and so close to going on to meet Tampa Bay with a spot in another conference final. Game 1 is Saturday is at 1 p.m.
And then it exploded, the whole damn place, when Derek Stepan got the game-winner 11:24 into overtime and was anointed the next hero in Rangers lore, off a rebound from a Dan Girardi shot that gave the Blueshirts a 2-1 win over the Capitals and sent them into a meeting with so many of their old friends now playing for the Lightning, lying in wait in the East final.