from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

There couldn’t be a more sudden hockey death than the one the Rangers suffered at the Garden in Thursday’s stunning 2-1 defeat to the Capitals on Joel Ward’s goal from in front with 1.3 seconds remaining in regulation.

After all, it was just about that time to kick back and wait for overtime in Game 1, but the Rangers kicked back too early and the Caps had no interest in waiting, which could be why Nicklas Backstrom showed no compunction at all in leveling Dan Boyle into the right corner wall from behind to trigger the sequence that ended with the puck in Henrik Lundqvist’s net.

The Blueshirts have a kick, all right, on the non-call against Backstrom, but this has been a playoff tournament replete with referees swallowing their whistles, presumably under an NHL dictate. The act of hitting from behind has largely been codified.

But that doesn’t get the Rangers off the hook for this one. That doesn’t get the team off the hook for an ordinary effort that might not have been good enough in December or January and wasn’t even close to good enough on the final night of April.

There should have been a penalty called against Backstrom, but the greater misfeasance belonged to the Blueshirts, who seemed to freeze at the lack of a whistle, and presented no opposition to the ensuing winning play on which Alex Ovechkin’s beauty of a centering feed against the grain found Ward all alone to the goaltender’s left.

continued

Watch the game highlights below...