New York Rangers fans themselves present with such variance that I never really know who or what is happening when they show up, even when watching a game in suspected good company, until they’re finished with an unsolicited monologue during a 0-0 second period, or until the Rangers score or surrender a goal – this is the style of critically-intensive, or at least intense, brand of Rangers fan I most encounter, who explodes in rage or laughs in sorrow, similarly red-faced in either case.

The Blueshirts went up 3-0 against the Carolina Hurricanes, one of the teams they specifically battled for the Presidents’ Trophy and, with it, the rights to home ice throughout the playoffs, and then lost two straight to force an anxious Game 6 in Raleigh.

With the familiar so close, the agony, the defiance, the broken brunch matinee that the Rangers being in a game 7 means for playoff hockey ratings, with Gary Bettman presumably seething over his hatred of hockey’s organic growth; with all of it staring them in the face, only a miraculous effort would save New York. Well then.

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