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Are the Rangers on the Brink of a Historic Comeback?

If you squint, it's possible to see how the Rangers can make history in the NHL Finals. Needless to say, their work is cut out for them.
Photo by Ed Mulholland/USA TODAY Sports

The New York Rangers were able to avoid being swept and have the Los Angeles Kings parade the Stanley Cup atop their logo, in front of their home fans with 2-1 win in Game Four of the Stanley Cup Finals. Are the planets aligning for a historic comeback or have the Rangers just delayed the inevitable?

It took a veteran Swedish goaltender, a blend of some not-so-fresh ice, and a heads-up play from a forward whose headgear looks like something from an obscure John Carpenter film, but the Rangers pulled it off. It wasn't their best game of the series—it was arguably their worst—but for just a moment, they were the gods of midtown Manhattan.

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There wasn't a sense or urgency from the entire roster, but there really didn't need to be. Henrik Lundqvist, was, by every measure, tremendous. His one gaffe came after Ranger defenseman Dan Girardi—whose has been in a cold sweat nightmare this entire series—broke his stick leaving Dustin Brown of the Kings with all the time in the world to beat Hank.

Here's a tip for New York Rangers players: Whole Foods actually sells pretty cheap, decent quality flowers. You might want to get your goaltender some.

"I mean, we didn't want to see the Cup coming out on our home ice tonight, Yeah, just the thought of it makes me feel sick," the Scandinavian goalie said, with a laugh, after his team's series-extending win.

His teammates knew it, too.

"He's been our best player throughout the whole playoffs, our most consistent player," Girardi said, in the locker room after the final horn. "When we were having troubles in our own end, he was there to make the huge saves for us. That's what we needed tonight."

It's just one win, but the Rangers are in a familiar situation now. Down 3-1 in a series in which they are considered the underdog. If they are able to compartmentalize the previous few games, and forget the ills that befell them up to this point, they may realistically have a shot at history, however slim.

The last, and only, time a team in the Finals overcame a 3-0 deficit was in 1942, when the Toronto Maple Leafs, lead by the scoring duo of Syl Apps and Gordie Drillon, were able to rip off four in a row and defeat the Detroit Red Wings. That year there was a hockey team in Brooklyn and the Chicago Blackhawks still called themselves the Black Hawks, which feels a little bit less racist to be honest.

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There were also only seven teams in the league that year and two playoff rounds so maybe comparisons aren't all that apt. Nevertheless, it has been done in the Stanley Cup Final, just not since the Allies defeated the Axis.

And while it has happened it other rounds—look no further than the Kings first round series against the San Jose Sharks—none of those teams had to do it against this year's Kings.

The Rangers, although not overconfident, have to like their chances to at least win a game on the road, forcing the Kings to travel across the county again, back to Madison Square Garden, with doubts creeping in. One game at a time has been the mantra almost burned into this team like a brand.

It's human nature to allow the anxiety of enormity to take over. The Rangers have to be mentally tough and not let the situation overwhelm them. Yes that's right, every Ranger, not just Lundqvist.

The Rangers will need to bring their best game, coupled with some positive luck/divine intervention/statistical variance, or whatever you'd like to call it—head coach Alain Vigneault showed that he is a believer after Game Four, dropping a "hockey gods" reference—to bring this series back to New York.

The main keys here are playing 60 minutes of consistent hockey and not allowing Los Angeles to wear them down. While they haven't shown that they can accomplish that so far, there's always a chance the Rangers haven't brought their best game to the rink yet. They'll need to match Los Angeles possession-wise, much like they did in the second game of the series, but this time without any inconsistency.

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For Los Angeles, it's as simple as staying the course. They have been the better team here, through four games. In the first three contests Jonathan Quick out-dueled Lundqvist. Their forwards were able to press until the Rangers broke, forcing turnover after turnover, and their defenseman, although shaky at first, made entering the zone a nearly impossible task.

Hockey's most eloquent philosopher and ardent thinker, Los Angeles head coach Darryl Sutter spoke on the off day between Game Four and Five about a potential Rangers come back, the concept of momentum, and winning on home ice.

"Every opportunity is an opportunity to win a game or be eliminated or win a series," he said, beautifully. "Doesn't make any more difference tomorrow than it did last night. That's a fact."

He did his best to dispel the notion that so-called game-to-game momentum exists and can have an impact on a series.

"There's momentum during games and momentum with penalties, momentum with scoring chances, things like that," he explicated. "But if it was always about momentum from game to game, then most series would be over in four and it wouldn't be called four out of seven, it would be the team that won the first game must have the momentum, and the team that won the last game must have all the momentum."

Sutter doesn't appear too worried about his team being on the losing end of a monumental collapse and, really, save Henrik Lundqvist flipping over to god-mode and the Rangers playing at an exceptionally high, sustained level, neither should his players.