The Rangers beat the Capitals in 2012 with Marian Gaborik, they beat the Caps in 2013 and 2015 with Rick Nash and they have now beaten the Caps in 2019 with Artemi Panarin.
What, you’re saying it’s not the same?
It is a long way from those playoff springs of glory in which the Blueshirts defeated the Caps three times in four years, each one a seven-game series. But looking down at the Garden ice on Wednesday, where Henrik Lundqvist was on one side and Alex Ovechkin on the other, if you squinted, maybe you could see from here to there.