It wasn’t just Henrik Lundqvist doubled over in the first moments after the Rangers’ season was over, as if having just been gut-punched the way Rangers fans, and Madison Square Garden, had just been gut-punched in Game 7 by the Tampa Bay Lightning. It was all of them on the ice after the kind of game the Rangers had never before lost, a Game 7 at home, but just had. A team that had been living on borrowed time throughout this playoff season had finally run out of time.
Lundqvist hadn’t been able to save them because they had been shut out at home in Game 7 the way they had been shut out in Game 5 last Sunday night, after they were supposed to have taken the whole thing back from the Lightning on the road in Game 4.