The Rangers start their series with the Penguins tonight.

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

And so it starts against the team the Blueshirts beat in seven of their last eight playoff games the last two springs, it starts against the team the Rangers eliminated the last two years. But at the same time it starts against the team that beat the Blueshirts three times in March to leapfrog them in the standings while going 14-1 to clinch first-round home ice.

“Everything we’ve done against them in the playoffs doesn’t count anymore,” Derick Brassard said following Tuesday’s practice. “But what they did against us the last few games doesn’t count either.

“They’re the team that’s getting the love and they deserve it. But we’re a pretty good team, too.”

It is a pretty good team whose core is mounting up for its Last Ride. Six of these guys — Henrik Lundqvist, Dan Girardi, Marc Staal, Ryan McDonagh, Derek Stepan and Chris Kreider — have been together for all of the last four go-’rounds in which the Rangers won eight rounds while playing 76 games. Three more essentials — Brassard, Rick Nash and Mats Zuccarello — joined the party in 2013. Four more — Kevin Klein, J.T. Miller, Dominic Moore and Jesper Fast — made the trek to L.A. for the 2014 Cup final.

Cap issues aside, there necessarily will be changes this offseason, for there are only so many times a team can try it with the same cast that is aging. The Rangers are only the second team in NHL history to win as many as eight rounds in a four-year period without a Cup to show for it — the 1988-91 Bruins won nine and the overlapping 1989-92 B’s took eight, and look what it got them when Boston won two rounds over the next 15 tournaments — and even if the window isn’t necessarily closing on the franchise or on its coach, it is surely closing on this core group.

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