NY Post: LATE FEDOROV GOAL SINKS RANGERS‘ DREAM

As in, “What if they’d played with the same passion in Games 5 and 6 of their first-round series against the Caps as they did here last night in Game 7?

What if the Rangers had taken the body, pounded the puck in deep and forced their vastly more talented opponents back in their end, pinning them on their heels, keeping the puck away from the splendid Alex Ovechkin and his playmates.

In the end, though, “What ifs” are for losers, which the Rangers were, 2-1, despite their best effort of the seven-game series they once led, if never quite controlled, 3-1.

They were losers — or were beaten, take your pick — when Sergei Fedorov pulled up off a right-wing rush, used Wade Redden as a screen and rifled a wrist shot from the circle that beat Henrik Lundqvist up top to the short side with 4:59 to go in the third.

NY Daily News: Rangers complete collapse as late goal leads Capitals to series win

They were game and they were good, but as they had been almost from the start of this first-round series with the Washington Capitals, they were second-best. And one final time, the 2008-09 Rangers were undone by an utter lack of scoring punch – that and Sergei Fedorov’s lightning bolt through Wade Redden and Henrik Lundqvist. Fedorov’s goal broke a longstanding tie with 4:59 left and sent the Blueshirts to a gut-wrenching 2-1 loss to the Caps in the winner-take-all Game 7.

That completed Washington’s comeback from a 3-1 series deficit to win its first playoff series in 11 years. It is the 21st time a team has erased a 3-1 deficit to win the series. The Rangers – 0-5 all-time in Game 7s on the road – became the first team in club history to lose a series it had led 3-1.

“Right now, it just (stinks), it really (stinks),” said Lundqvist, who made 22 saves. “It’s going to be a long summer.”

Newsday:Rangers eliminated as Caps’ Fedorov scores late

“We had three chances to put them away,” said Markus Naslund after Sergei Fedorov snapped a 1-1 tie with 4:59 left in the third period to give the Capitals a 2-1 win last night and send the Rangers home. “It’s unfortunate. If we played the other two like this, maybe we could have beaten them.”

The other two, of course, were Games 5 and 6. In Game 5 Rangers coach John Tortorella benched Sean Avery for penalties incurred in Game 4 and the Rangers lacked a spark. Matt Bradley scored two goals in the first period, one shorthanded, in Game 5 for a 4-0 Caps’ win that was punctuated by an altercation between Tortorella and taunting fans that triggered a one-game suspension for squirting water and tossing a plastic water bottle and striking a spectator.

NY Times: The Rangers See Red as a Series and a Season Melt Away

The Capitals won their series against the Rangers, just as almost everyone originally predicted. But what a series it turned out to be.

The Record: Rangers come up short in Game 7

“We’re not an offensive juggernaut and that comes back and bites us,” said coach John Tortorella, who took over for Tom Renney on Feb. 23. “We knew we had to close down the neutral zone and we did that well for two periods, but they amped it up.”

Fedorov collected the puck in the neutral zone after a shot by Brandon Dubinsky rebounded wide around the boards. Redden, not wanting Fedorov to get past him, opted not to try to knock the puck away before Fedorov could control it.

Redden did keep Fedorov to the outside but the Russian’s sudden stop gave him enough space to shoot. The shot, which deflected slightly off Redden’s stick, beat Henrik Lundqvist (22 saves) over his glove.