Rangers’ lack of any room for error makes losses like this so crushing
NY Post
A minute to go in regulation became 20 seconds to go in regulation, the shots over the final two periods were 27 for the Rangers and eight for Colorado, the scoring chances over that span were 22-10 for the Blueshirts against one of the most highly skilled and dangerous opponents in the league.
But Sunday afternoon’s entertaining match at the Garden did not end with 20 seconds to go. No, it most certainly did not. And it did not end well for the Rangers.
For the resplendent Cale Makar, in the box from the 17:36 mark in what was a 4-4 game in which the Blueshirts had clawed back from 2-0 and 4-2, raced onto the ice after the Avalanche killed the penalty.
Makar raced into the defensive zone just in time to pick off a Will Borgen cross-ice pass meant for Artemi Panarin high on the left side.
This was near the end of a magnificent American life, and he’d been battling lung and prostate cancer for some time, but Pee Wee Reese was absolutely going to get in the car and make the drive from Louisville to Kansas City. The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum was honoring his dear friend Jackie Robinson, and Reese knew that meant seeing so many friends from the old days.
The pity is, at this point, the greatness we are watching in real time is threatened every week to be reduced to a footnote. We are witnesses to history, to the rarest form of extended success in a time of professional sport that’s supposed to be ruled by parity. But every year we have to deal with something else first.