The entirety of the endgame was played against the screeching soundtrack of desperation, of pleading, of wanting, of beseeching. Anton Lundell had snuck the puck past Igor Shesterkin 10 minutes and 22 seconds into the third period, kneecapping the 18,006 anxious believers, muting them briefly, giving the Florida Panthers a 2-1 lead.
The Panthers still had the most difficult part of the night in front of them, these final 9 minutes and 38 seconds. They still had that long to go to hold off the Rangers, to hold off Madison Square Garden, all of these people refusing to believe the season could be nudged to the brink like this.
Both sides of the ice, both teams — blue sweaters and white — were playing every inch of this game as a Game 5, as the series-tilter. Bodies were sprawled at every opportunity, absorbing lightning-bolt slap shots. Every puck that went into the corner, five and six players pursued it like there was a winning Powerball ticket tucked inside.
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And the roar grew louder. More desperate. How many times this season had the Rangers found a way late in a game — up a man, down a man, even-strength — and finagled their way into overtime, where they’d steal a point, maybe two. Surely they could do that again. Shesterkin fled the net. One last time, it was on.
And then the Panthers scored again. Three-one.
And still it didn’t matter. There was a timeout. There was a regrouping. Here came the Rangers again. Shesterkin left the net again. And here was Alexis Lafreniere, on the doorstep, tipping in a shot from Mika Zibanejad. Three-two now. Forty-nine seconds and change left.
Nobody wanted to ponder what an empty 49 and change would mean: the possibility that this would be the last time they’d all gather here this spring, so achingly close to the Stanley Cup Final, so maddeningly close to sniffing a Cup. Here came Shesterkin again.
It was six-on-five again.
In reality it was 18,012-on-5.
It wouldn’t matter. It didn’t matter. So often this year the Garden felt like an impenetrable fortress for its chief tenants. Then the Knicks got trucked in Game 7 against the Pacers. Now the Rangers get trimmed in Game 5 against the Panthers. If the Rangers want a Garden mulligan, a Garden do-over, they must take the series back Saturday night in Sunrise, Fla.
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Otherwise, it’s all about Billy Joel at the Garden till next October.
“Another close game,” Zibanejad lamented.
“Every game is super close like that,” said Chris Kreider, who’d given the Rangers a 1-0 lead with a shortie 2:04 into the second period.
It seemed like the first time anyone inside the Garden walls had exhaled in an hour. The volume had gone to 11 when they took the ice, backed by “Baba O’Riley.”
There have been some years where that Who song’s generational twin — “Won’t Get Fooled Again” — might’ve been a more cruelly appropriate theme song for the Rangers, and for their fans. This year has been different from the start. The Rangers started fast. They ended faster. They won their first seven playoff games. No fooling. No folly.
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No dice. Not Thursday night. We’ve spent the last couple of months drawing comparisons to 1994? OK. Why not one more critical one. Why not go on the road in Game 6, needing to win and then win again to play for the Cup? It’ll be a longer commute this time, requiring an airplane and not just a tunnel toll. The stakes are just as high.
“We’ve got to continue to get pucks and bodies to the net,” Kreider said, “and hopefully it’ll all come out in the wash.”
Shesterkin was brilliant, of course, setting aside 34 of the 36 shots he faced. There’s no reason to believe he won’t be the same Saturday night. But Sergei Bobrovsky is awfully good, too. The Rangers got nine fewer shots off against him Thursday. That needs to be different in Game 6.
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“I thought they pushed in the third period, got some chances off the rush, some chances off our turnovers,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. “And they took [advantage].”
The game ended, the buzzer sounded, audible in the discomfiting quiet of a rapidly emptying arena. Nothing more to see here for the night. Now the Rangers need to re-channel 1994 one last time — and with feeling — to make sure there’s something left to see come Monday night.
