So here we go. When the Rangers take the ice for Thursday’s season opener at the Garden, they’ll see a powerful Predators team that has been on the cusp of winning the Cup for a few years now, and from which nothing less than a championship will be deemed acceptable.
In other words, the Way the Rangers Were.
Great expectations come with a commensurate burden. The Rangers learned and lived that over the half-dozen seasons, since the 2011-12 breakthrough that produced a second-overall finish, a regular-season Eastern Conference title and a trip to the conference finals.
But now, a Presidents’ Trophy, a trip to the Cup final and another to the conference finals later, not so much.