Rangers look to recent Cup winners for optimism after early playoff exit

GREENBURGH, N.Y. -- The disappointment was still palpable, emotions still raw on the second day of an offseason that will be much longer than expected for the New York Rangers.

All the questions about why they lost to the New Jersey Devils in seven games in the Eastern Conference First Round were still relevant and fresh, namely: How could a roster that features forwards Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, Patrick Kane, Artemi Panarin, Vladimir Tarasenko and Vincent Trocheck, and defenseman Adam Fox not score even one goal in Games 5 and 7, and manage just one each in Games 3 and 4?

"Stings," Kreider said Wednesday. "A hollow, empty feeling. Kind of a little bit in disbelief still."

Panarin, who did not have a point in the last six games of the series, said, "Can't say much. Everyone knows without words. I expected we can go further, but can't change anything right now. Have to get back to work, try to be ready for next year."

Next year might feel like forever from now as the Rangers stare into May knowing they won't play another game that matters until October, but they are not without optimism either.

All they have to do is look at some of the recent Stanley Cup champions and see that their paths to the top all included letdowns like the one New York experienced this year along the way.

The Tampa Bay Lightning might be the greatest example of them all, going from getting swept in the first round by the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2019 to reaching the Stanley Cup Final the next three years, winning the Cup in 2020 and 2021.

There are the Colorado Avalanche, who lost in the second round of the playoffs three years in a row before climbing the mountain last year and finishing as Stanley Cup champions by defeating the Lightning.

The Washington Capitals lost in either the first or second round nine times in 10 seasons from 2008-17 before finally getting over the hump and winning the Cup in 2018.

The St. Louis Blues won it in 2019 after missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs altogether in 2018.

"I talked about that, trust me," coach Gerard Gallant said. "It's the way things work. Those teams did that. You build a lot of chemistry over the years with those types of things."

The Rangers have reason to believe that they're heading down a similar road.

Like the Lightning, Avalanche, Capitals and Blues before them, the Rangers have a core group of players all in their prime and signed long term. Panarin, Zibanejad, Kreider, Trocheck, Fox, defenseman Jacob Trouba and forwards Filip Chytil and Barclay Goodrow are all signed for at least three more seasons.

They have either the best or one of the best goalies on the planet in Igor Shesterkin, who is signed for two more seasons.

They have tasted success, winning 99 games the past two seasons, tied with the Minnesota Wild and Edmonton Oilers for sixth in the NHL in that span, and getting to the Eastern Conference Final last season before running out of gas against the Lightning.

Then again, that's what makes this loss to New Jersey so crushing, because New York couldn't build on what it did a year ago, making it feel like a wasted season.

"It's a different level of disappointment," Kreider said. "I think we went as far as we possibly could last year. We were certainly on our last legs when we lost in Game 6 to Tampa. We had a lot of injuries. We really poured everything out. I just felt we had more hockey in us this year."

The next and really only thing the Rangers can do is learn from what went wrong against the Devils and why they aren't in Raleigh, North Carolina, right now playing in the second round.

For starters, they couldn't keep up in the series at times, the Devils' speed overwhelming them. Why, and how do they correct that?

Fox said after Game 7 and again Wednesday that maybe the Rangers were guilty of easing up after going up 2-0 with dominating 5-1 wins in Games 1 and 2. Maybe they thought it was going to be easy.

Did they? Because that can't happen in the playoffs, ever. It's never easy this time of the year.

In the third period of Game 5, when they were down 3-0 and needed a big push, how did the Rangers get outshot 20-2?

These are the tough questions that get asked when a team with high expectations loses in the first round. The answers, if there are any, are never satisfactory.

"We learned a lot last year and we definitely will learn a lot from this year," Zibanejad said. "When the expectations are what they are, and I'm not even talking about you guys or everyone around us, but in terms of the guys here in the locker room and what we feel like we had, and not being able to meet that, this one stings."

The Lightning know all about that. So do the Capitals, Blues and, most recently, the Avalanche.

They mapped out the road the Rangers feel they can follow.

"I guess we'll find out come next season, but it's up to us to make it a positive turning point in the narrative," Kreider said. "I know it's a ridiculous thing to say on the heels of a loss like that in the first round, but it's up to us to take it and to use it as fuel and to come back and be a lot better next year. It's up to us to hopefully look back on it years from now and say it was a tough time, but a net positive, just a steppingstone, part of the narrative, I guess a brush point where we learned a lot from it, turned around and had success as a result. Not to look back on it and say it was a missed opportunity."