from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Brad Richards had played in 111 playoff games before, but never had he played in one quite like this one.

“Nope. I don’t even know if I’ve seen one like this,” the Rangers’ de facto captain told The Post after the Rangers mangled and bungled away a potential Game 5 Eastern Conference clincher with their chaotic 7-4 defeat on Tuesday to the Canadiens. “We’ve all seen playoff games where it gets out of control physically, but this was something else.

“It was just crazy stuff. Completely out of control in every way. Out of whack. It didn’t even seem like a playoff game.”

Potential clincher or not, desperate opponent or not, late May or not, the Rangers simply were dreadful. They looked like the group that needed to close the door for postgame meetings in San Jose and Anaheim the very first week of the season.

They looked like a team, in fact, that had experienced a collective cerebral absence.

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