Flyers 3

Rangers 0

ROCK BOTTOM, NHL – This is the location to which the Rangers have sunk, this franchise that has attained what was unthinkable a decade ago when it stood so tall not only as Stanley Cup champions, but as the organization that had taken hockey through sports’ ice ceiling. This is where the Rangers now kneel, among the dregs not only of their league, but in all of professional sports.

A seventh straight failure to qualify for the playoffs became official yesterday with a 3-0 defeat in Philadelphia. And if the skeleton squad left behind after Glen Sather’s trade deadline demolition derby competed harder than the varsity had numerous times earlier in the season, it still wasn’t enough to keep the team on a ventilator for another day. And so what has been obvious for weeks and perhaps even months was cemented as a mathematical certainty with the squad’s fifth straight loss.

No matter what happens over the final seven games, beginning with this afternoon’s match in Pittsburgh, there is no way in. No way in. No way in for a seventh straight season. In all the history of the NHL, this is only the eighth time a team has missed for that many consecutive years. It is surely the first time in not only NHL history but in the annals of professional sports that a team has spent more money than all of its competitors over a seven-year span without even a single playoff game to show for the investment.

“You play 82 games to have a shot at winning the Stanley Cup, and when you don’t get that chance it’s very disappointing,” said Mark Messier, himself on an unprecedented NHL run of seven straight years out as a captain, the first three misses coming in Vancouver. “It’s very disappointing for all of us.”

There were three years beginning in 1997-98 under Neil Smith’s regime and now four under Sather. No team in NHL history, by the way, has ever missed more than the nine straight years the combined Colorado Rockies and Devils did from 1978-79 through 1986-87. No one, however, should minimize the possibility of the Rangers doing so. In other words, there might well be another way to go but up.

This year’s club hasn’t been in a playoff position since the afternoon of Jan. 17. Since gaining a tie that night in Montreal while the Islanders were defeating the Sabres to thus leapfrog the Blueshirts on a tiebreaker, the Rangers have won seven of 30, going 7-20-0-3. Their elimination with Game 75 represents their second fastest exit of the era, with the 2000-01 club – Sather’s first – having gone out one game sooner.

“It’s a [lousy] situation,” said Renney. “But as a coaching staff we’re trying to create as positive an environment as we can.”

If there is any solace to be gained from yesterday’s loss – one in which Jaromir Jagr was assessed a pair of nonsense penalties only to accurately observe, “I understand that when you’re not in the playoffs, you’re not going to get that respect from the officials; I understand” – it’s that the Blueshirts are remain only one point ahead of the 26th-overall Coyotes. Phoenix, which has played one game fewer than the Rangers, currently holds the final position among lottery clubs eligible to move up for the first overall pick.