The Rangers — and their fans — dreamed of 16 wins. They got three.
They were constructed with the firepower and experience to overwhelm a rookie goaltender in Game 7. They were shut out when it mattered.
Now, after the autopsy is complete of Monday night’s 4-0 loss to the rival Devils — not as close as the score would indicate! — and the collapse from 2-0 up in the series, the Rangers organization faces a painful offseason.
When franchise legend Mark Messier, appearing almost forlorn on the ESPN set during the second intermission, muttered, “Too much to fix,” it seemed as if he was not simply addressing the Rangers’ 2-0 deficit entering the third period at Prudential Center.
This is the kind of loss that has consequences.
The Post’s Larry Brooks wondered whether head coach Gerard Gallant would make it as far as the post-season press conference.
“Talent doesn’t mean a thing,” Gallant said Monday night. “It’s great to have talent, but you’ve got to play together and work together. Obviously, the four games that we lost, we had two goals. That’s the bottom line. You’re not going to win if you get two goals in four games. I love to have talent, but you love to have work ethic and more forecheck and stuff like that. We just didn’t get it done.”
Hmm. Not exactly making nice with his boss who put together the roster.
The culprits in the seven-game flop are almost too numerous to name.
Mika Zibanejad had one goal. Which was one goal more than Artemi Panarin had.
Headline midseason additions Patrick Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko head to free agency after being unable to make dents against the Devils, though Kane did receive high marks from the French judges for the artistry of his figure skating in the long program.
How will the cap-strapped Rangers go about replacing them on the wings?
And how will they approach negotiations with K’Andre Miller and Alexis Lafreniere on their next contracts?
Even Chris Kreider (on the ice for all four Devils goals) and Adam Fox (minus-2) were off-kilter with costly turnovers in Game 7.
Jacob Trouba made a contribution, if you call it that, by nearly putting Timo Meier in the hospital.
Well, Igor Shesterkin can be spared — he was good.
(And good for the Devils, it can be said. The young and speedy upstarts, backed by rookie goalie Akira Schmid’s heater, move on to face Carolina, joining such hockey redoubts as [checks notes] Florida, Dallas, Las Vegas and Seattle in the second round. Can national TV interest you in the hexed Maple Leafs or Connor McDavid?)
“What a waste,” The Post’s Mollie Walker wrote to conclude her blistering recap of Game 7 and of the whole enterprise of the 107-point, star-laden Rangers failing to win a playoff round, and those words may well be on the lips of the team’s fans this morning.
The wait for another Stanley Cup has reached 29 years. And counting.
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A pair of ankles could decide Game 2.
Wait, no, make that a trio of ankles.
Jalen Brunson was a surprise addition to the Knicks’ injury report on Monday afternoon with what was termed a “sore right ankle,” joining Julius Randle and Jimmy Butler as questionable for Game 2.
Randle, who missed Game 1 of the Knicks’ second-round series after reaggravating his sprained ankle, and Butler, who turned his ankle late in the Heat’s win on Sunday, are both game-time decisions entering Tuesday night’s matchup at Madison Square Garden.
Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau and Heat coach Erik Spoelstra were intentionally vague about the statuses of Randle and Butler, respectively, each stating the player’s availability wouldn’t be announced until the 7:30 p.m. ET tip-off nears. Thibodeau, who did not mention Brunson’s condition on Monday morning, did state that Randle has shown improvement.
“He’s feeling a little better,” Thibodeau said. “We’re hopeful.”
The Knicks need more than hope. Their best season in a decade may be on the line tonight.
Only five times since 1976 has an NBA team won a series after losing the first two games at home.
Nearly 93 percent of the teams to take a 2-0 lead in a playoff series have finished the job.
The Heat also have gone 29-14 at home this season, including the playoffs.
— Howie Kussoy
In with the new, back in with the old.
The Mets (16-13) got big lifts from youngsters Brett Baty and Francisco Alvarez in splitting a doubleheader with the NL East-leading Braves on Monday at Citi Field.
Baty, 23, played both ends of the twinbill, and had six hard-hit balls while going a combined 3-for-9. In addition to a home run over the bullpen in right field — his first in the majors against a left-hander — the third baseman recorded a double, a single, two 100-mph-plus lineouts and a warning-track fly ball.
Alvarez, 21, picked up his biggest hit in a Mets uniform to date: a go-ahead two-run double in the 4-3 victory that salvaged the split.
The kids’ exploits paired nicely with the pre-game news that 38-year-old Max Scherzer will return to the rotation Wednesday — accompanied by all of the scrutiny of his sticky-substance suspension (televise those post-inning palm-readings, SNY!) — followed by the Mets debut of 40-year-old Justin Verlander, who had been sidelined due a muscle strain near his right armpit.
That’s $86.66 million worth of veteran right-handers, fulfilling the 2023 vision of paired aces by going on consecutive days in Detroit, where Scherzer and Verlander first were teammates and formed a competitive rivalry — as deftly explored in this feature by The Post’s Mark W. Sanchez.
Their emergence in the rotation ought to offer a line of demarcation for the Mets, who rank 23rd in the majors with a 5.21 starters’ ERA.
LeBron. Steph. Lakers. Warriors.
The second round rarely sees such stakes, such intrigue, such star power.
One more time — potentially, one final time — the two greatest players of their generation meet in the postseason, with LeBron James and the Lakers visiting Steph Curry and the Warriors on Tuesday in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals (10 p.m. ET, TNT).
The winner of the first postseason battle between James and Curry since they faced off in four consecutive NBA Finals (2015-18) will move one icon one step closer to his fifth championship.
The intrastate series marks the first playoff meeting between the Lakers and Warriors since 1991, headlined by the NBA’s all-time leaders in points (James) and 3-pointers (Curry).
It is incredible — and for a time, seemed unlikely — that these legends will battle on this stage again.
To get here, the Lakers needed to survive a late-season injury to James, a play-in game and the second-seeded Grizzlies. The Warriors lost the first two games of their first-round series, entered Game 3 against the Kings without Draymond Green and entered Game 7 in Sacramento as an underdog.
James may no longer be at his peak, but he still averaged 28.9 points, 8.3 rebounds and 6.8 assists this season at age 38.
Curry, 35, remains as brilliant as ever, having averaged 29.4 points, 6.3 assists and 6.1 rebounds this season while hitting nearly 43 percent of 3-pointers.
“It’s going to be epic,” Draymond Green said after the Warriors’ series-clinching win, in which Curry set a Game 7 scoring record with 50 points. “You got Steph, you got Bron, doing it all over again.”
The Warriors have home-court advantage, and enter the series as a slight favorite (-145 on DraftKings) in what may be the most even matchup between Curry and James — coincidentally, born in the same hospital in Akron, Ohio — since the iconic 2016 NBA Finals.
Curry won his first title in 2015, ending Golden State’s 40-year title drought, after the Cavaliers lost Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love to injury.
James ended Cleveland’s 52-year title drought the next year, leading a comeback from a 3-1 deficit — after Green was suspended in Game 5 — against the record-setting 73-win Warriors.
Then Kevin Durant went to California, and Curry accepted a seat as an overqualified co-pilot, winning another two rings against James.
Two years ago, James and Curry went head-to-head in an oft-forgotten play-in Game. Curry had 37 points and seven rebounds, tying the score with 1:23 to play. James had 22 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists, hitting the game-winning 3-pointer with 58.2 seconds remaining shortly after being poked in the eye.
Two years after playing what could have easily been their final meaningful matchup, the former MVPs will make the second round feel like the Finals.
“Stop trying to turn the page on us so fast,” Green said. “Stop trying to turn the page on Bron. … We get so caught up in what’s the next thing, we don’t appreciate the current. Then you get to the next thing, and you’re looking back, like, ‘Man, I wish we still had that. I wish we could still see this.’”
— Howie Kussoy