This loss extra painful for close Rangers’ team: ‘like a family’
NY Post
SUNRISE, Fla. — The team that ended every practice with a hug finished its season by watching the opposition embrace.
These Rangers, most of the core having been here before this season, were particularly close. Every team is, but this one drew from it like a well.
It seeped into their mentality and into everything they did on the ice.
The 2-1 loss to the Panthers on Saturday night that ended the season in Game 6 of the conference finals — one round short of their goal — was even more crushing for that fact.
“It feels like a family in here,” Mika Zibanejad said, speaking in a low voice inside the dressing room after it ended. “I think we’ve been working since training camp started. A lot of guys have been here from before and the new guys that came in have been unbelievable. It’s just everyone wants to see the next guy do well and everyone’s been fighting for the same thing, towards the same goal. I love this team and I love the guys on this team.
“This obviously makes it a lot harder to lose.”
SALT LAKE CITY — The Knicks could not fully salvage a two-way clunker Saturday night, and their longest winning streak of the season is history.
If Brian Daboll will be fighting to keep his job across these next seven weeks, it is not lost on Tommy DeVito that he is the one who has been entrusted to help his coach save it.
Kevin Shattenkirk is 35, a Stanley Cup champion and now a father of three with his wife, Deanna, after having a second daughter in September.
SALT LAKE CITY — An encouraging upgrade in his availability status didn’t result in Miles McBride’s return to the Knicks lineup.
This is pretty much the deal.
Uncertainty has followed Zion Williamson off the court.
SALT LAKE CITY — The “Dimes” nickname is open in New York now that quarterback Daniel Jones has been released by the Giants, and perhaps it can be a fitting team-wide moniker in another sport.
General Curtis LeMay: “You’re in a pretty big fix, Mr. President.”
Last spring’s ultimate defeat, coming on top of a quite similar one 24 months earlier, should have proved once and for all that the Rangers’ skill game, impressive at it at may be in spurts, does not overcome their physicality deficiency at the final-four level.
Jon Berti, who started three postseason games at first base for the Yankees when Anthony Rizzo was out with fractured fingers, was non-tendered by the team prior to Friday’s deadline, as was left-hander Tim Mayza.
CALGARY, Alberta — The Rangers needed just 16 seconds to get back into a game they had no business being in over halfway through.