from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

General manager Glen Sather and his staff have the responsibility of bolstering the personnel to attain the three victories by which the Rangers came up short, and without first-rounders for the next two seasons — gone to Tampa Bay in the deadline deal that brought Marty St. Louis into New Yorkers’ lives — to either regenerate the operation or to dangle as trade assets....

The Rangers simply have to get bigger. The Kings’ size and ability to get to the net and cause havoc for Henrik Lundqvist was the decisive factor in the finals. If the Rangers are playing with the big boys now, it can’t only be about players putting on their big-boy pants. It’s about Sather getting bigger boys who can go toe-to-toe with the Jeff Carters, Dustin Browns and, yes, Milan Lucics of the world.

It is a fait accompli that Brad Richards has worn the Blueshirt for the final time. It is only a matter of timing as to when management exercises its final amnesty buyout on the team’s de-facto captain, whose tenure over three years added class and a substantial presence to the organization. Richards will leave the Rangers in a far better place than when he joined them. His contract has paid for itself.

Derek Stepan elevated his game throughout the tournament, during which he was matched consistently against the opposition’s top line. Stepan’s compete-level was exemplary. In his fourth year in the playoffs, and while playing the final seven games with a contraption affixed to his helmet to protect the broken jaw he sustained in Game 3 against Montreal, Stepan got it. The Rangers have no worries going forward with No. 21.

The same cannot be said regarding Rick Nash, who played extremely hard, but not well enough by any definition in order to justify his status as the go-to difference maker Sather thought he was in acquiring from Columbus two years ago.

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