Regarding the Rangers, who at 2-8-4 since the deadline and with six games remaining beginning with Friday’s match at the Garden against the Blues, are rivaling the 2003-04 Stripped Down Purge Team’s 4-9-3 wheeze to the finish line following the trade of Brian Leetch.
But even as success was fleeting for the 2018-19 Blueshirts — 17 victories in 54 games (17-26-11) since Thanksgiving — the evaluation process has continued to the bitter end. As David Quinn has said often since Kevin Hayes and Mats Zuccarello were sent away, someone was not only always watching, but those things witnessed can neither be unseen or completely erased from memory.