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No team in NHL history has won the Stanley Cup directly off four consecutive playoff misses. Fact is, no team has ever sipped from the chalice after missing the tournament even three years running, and the only team to win the Cup immediately following a pair of consecutive misses, the 2005-06 Hurricanes, had the preceding, lockout-cancelled 2004-05 as a buffer.

The Rangers have been on the outside looking in the past four years, and no, the 2020 bubble qualifying round does not count even if players’ individual statistics in the three-game sweep by Carolina appear in the playoff column. Four years, and the Blueshirts are in position to stop the counting.

They are in position to take the step that allows them to take the big step the way that Chicago and Los Angeles did last decade, the way Tampa Bay did in 2004 and Pittsburgh did in 1991 and Boston did in 1970.