The New York Rangers have had plenty of rough games in the last season and a half. Most games have resulted in losses, some harder to swallow than others. However, nothing compares to the raw emotions of painful Rangers playoff losses. Having to wait two or three days for the chance to get back at it, or being sent home in some cases, feels terrible. While I am also looking at the Rangers best playoff wins since 2011 (coming soon), it felt appropriate with the last two seasons to look at the most painful Rangers playoff losses first.
If you missed Part 1, make sure you read that for maximum pain.
5. 2022 Eastern Conference Finals Game 3
We’ve covered a similar game in the 2024 Eastern Conference Finals Game 4, but this one could have taken the Rangers even closer to the Stanley Cup Final. If the Rangers could have held onto a lead in this game, they would have led the Tampa Bay Lightning 3-0 in the Conference Finals. Given how rarely teams come back from 3-0 deficits, it’s super plausible that the Rangers would have faced off with the Colorado Avalanche in the 2022 Stanley Cup Finals.
Instead, Ondrej Palat scored with less than a minute left in the third period, and the Rangers went on to lose games four, five, and six as well. Rough.
4. 2014 Stanley Cup Finals Game 1
It felt like the Stanley Cup was going the Rangers way to start. The Rangers got off to an early two-goal lead thanks to goals from Benoit Pouliot and Carl Hagelin. Then, Kyle Clifford scored. Then, Drew Doughty scored. So game one went to overtime, where merely four minutes in, Dan Girardi forgot how to play hockey and sent the Rangers to the locker-room down 1-0 in the series. It was a brutal way to start the ultimate series and things only got worse from there.
3. 2015 Eastern Conference Finals Game 3
Maybe the most exciting game of any of the 10 on my list, but sadly yet another that did not go the Rangers way. After a wild back and forth affair that featured Dan Boyle of all people tying the game at 5 late, Nikita Kucherov scored the overtime winner to give the Tampa Bay Lightning a 2-1 series lead.
This game isn’t in this spot because it ended the series or anything, but it was an incredible game that ended in the worst goal allowed in Henrik Lundqvist’s career. Sure, the goalscorer was Kucherov, but giving up the overtime winner on a wrister from deep was an awful letdown by Lundqvist.
2. 2014 Stanley Cup Final Game 2
The Dwight King game. Continuing the trend of the 2014 Stanley Cup Final being horrifically painful, the Rangers blew multiple leads and lost in double overtime to head back to New York down 2-0, when they just as easily could have been up 2-0 in the series. The lowlight of this game was Dwight King clearly interfering with Henrik Lundqvist but failing to be called for a penalty, instead getting credit for a goal.
1. 2015 Eastern Conference Finals Game 7
Before this game, the Rangers felt invincible in Game 7s. With Henrik Lundqvist in net and an experienced core, it felt inevitable that the Rangers would not only win the game, but also go onto the Stanley Cup Final and win that, too. The Tampa Bay Lightning were the true threats for the cup, not any team the Western Conference was going to throw at the Rangers.
Sadly, the Rangers didn’t show up for the biggest game of the year. Lundqvist gave up a pair of goals, the Rangers didn’t score or come particularly close to scoring, and the Rangers season ended in brutal fashion for the second consecutive year. The Rangers wouldn’t make it back to the Eastern Conference Finals until 2022. They lost to the Lightning then, as well.