Stomachs churn. Muscles ache. What-ifs spin through the brain.
“It’s never easy to sleep after an overtime loss,” Derek Stepan said Saturday.
For the Rangers, Friday’s 4-3 overtime loss in Game 2 to the Canadiens was an especially excruciating loss because the Blueshirts were 17.3 seconds away from taking a 2-0 series lead.
Trailing by a goal, the desperate Canadiens made a tremendous push in the last 10 minutes of the third period while the Rangers — in their own words — sat back and tried to protect the lead. That fact kept Stepan and the Rangers tossing and turning in their Montreal hotel.