Triumph Earned, but Most Arduously, Sapping Us Silly

Well that went according to script, didn't it?The thing about trying to script an NHL game 7 is this: it's a fool's errand. An hour before faceoff last night the story was already mythical up in the Verizon Center press box: Rangers' head coach John Tortorella, at a morning press scrum, asked for a show of hands among the New York media to see who believed his team would prevail against the surging, stylish Caps.Not one hand was raised. We should have known better than to believe all of those advance obituaries penned and prophesied for the Blueshirts. Mike Green afterward said that the New York Rangers "played the perfect game. They couldn't have played us better." In his postgame remarks Bruce Boudreau suggested that his team should have won the series' first six games, and on the bench in the third, his thoughts were of overtime and his team losing the one lone game it deserved to in this series. What we got Tuesday night in Chinatown is what we ...