Ranger Backs Against the Wall

Friday was not a good morning for Ranger fans. Preceded by not a good night. A loss at the Garden's home ice to Tampa to give Tampa 3-2 lead in the series makes the Ranger task even more difficult in upending the consecutive year Stanley Cup champions. The Rangers were outplayed, and probably outcoached. If not for the width of metal goalposts, the Ranger loss would have been sealed even earlier in the game than late in the game. Once again.

Winston Churchill once commented after a failed assassination attempt "that nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result." Goal post clankers don't count as shots on goal. A shot on goal is one that would go in if the goaltender weren't there. When you hit the goalpost, it is not a shot on goal, but certainly a shot at goal.

The two heavy metal clankers that hit the Ranger goal posts early in the first period at one point left Tampa with the funny statistic at the moment of one shot on goal, and two posts. Not a good sign for the Rangers.

Rangers need a hero, as the back page of today's New York Post proclaims. They need a Mark Messier guarantee of a Game 6 victory like he guaranteed in 1994 over the New Jersey Devils—and of course got it with a hat trick.

The good luck charm of having baritone John Brancy heroically sing (and looking somewhat like what Messier looks like now) the National Anthem wore off Thursday night. Nevertheless, he should be used whenever his schedule allows.

So, Saturday night in Tampa. Do or die. Busy sports day with Belmont racetrack gearing up for its showcase Belmont Stakes day, the one highlight of its meets. The Belmont Stakes today marks my 54th anniversary of being involved in racing as I attended the 1968 Belmont with friends and saw Stage Door Johnny win and the owner Mrs. Payson in her Macy's house dress appear in the winner's circle. Mrs. Payson (Joan) was John Hay (Jock) Whitney's sister, the publisher of The Herald Tribune, and the guiding force on bringing a National League team back to New York in the form of the initially hapless, helpless Mets. She was known as a sportswoman.

Is this the last time I'll see a good Ranger team with a chance at the finals? Getting there is hardly easy, and at 73 years old  I might have seen the one championship they already delivered in1994. My father, born in 1915, saw three Stanley Cup wins; 1928, 1933 and 1940. But with as many teams as there are now, and the length of the playoffs, you might only get one Stanley Cup per lifetime.

But of course, someone might emerge tonight as the hero and force a Game 7 back at MSG. The crowd will register on Columbia's seismograph if that happens.

Let's Go Rangers.

http://www.onoff.ramp.blogspot.com