NY Rangers: Timeline For Cup Run Accelerated

If there was one certainty heading into the 2011-2012 season, it was that this Rangers’ team coached by John Tortorella was going to work hard. It has been their blueprint for several seasons now, and it was this lunch pail approach, manifested in their choice of Ryan Callahan as Captain, that brought the club to the point where they were capable of competing with any opponent on any night. What the team lacked, though, in almost direct proportion to the amount of grit it possessed, was talent. Not the kind of expected talent that’s required to play in the NHL, but rather the kind of talent that separates the good from the great, and the great from the world-class. It could even be said that the expectation for this year would be that, in general terms, the Rangers’ would continue relying primarily on trench work to get the job done. The offseason brought in Brad Richards, of course, but Richards himself was known more for his workmanlike approach to playmaking than he was for fla...