Rangers are whole: But are they good enough to win a Cup?

SAN JOSE, Calif. — These are the Rangers, for better or worse. There is no knight in shinning armor wait🦩ing to be traded for, no young stud in the AHL primed to come up and make waves.

What that means is that the only way the Blueshirts will find themselves riding up the Canyon of Heroes this s🧸ummer is by this group raisi✅ng its own individual and collective level, which has been left wanting for the majority of a tumultuous season.

The Rangers brass might not want to admit it publicly, but the window on Henrik Lundqvist’s prime is closing. The urgency was there in Lundqvist’s anger after the 4-3 overtime loss to the Kings on Thursday night at Staples Center, the same place wওere he lamented the lost Stanley Cup final 🔥of 2014. This time, he was bemoaning what he thought was a blown goalie-interference call that cost the Rangers the game.

Yet the call that didn’t come never was going to save the Rangers. With a 3-1 lead, they sat back, chipped it out and tried to defend. They did the same thing in Anaheim the night before, managing to hold on for a 2-1 victory that started thi꧟s three-game swing up the Pacific Coast on a bright note.

But if that game against the Ducks had kept going, if Kevin Klein had score💃d the go-ahead goal earlier than with just 6:41 remaining in the third period, the feeling was that it was only a matter of time until the Ducks tied it. As they have so many times before, the Rangers were hanging on for dear life, hoping the horn would blow before the walls came crashing down.

If that’s not what they want to do, then why do they always do it? It has been a template for making three of the past four conference finals 🌠— but it’s also the reason they still have 1994 as the꧒ir lone championship in the past 76 years.

So as their California trip concludes Saturday afternoon at the SAP Center against the playoff-bound Sharks, the pressure is on. And it doesn’t just means victories or staving off the hard-charging Islanders for home-ice advantage in the first round of the pla🤪yoffs.

It means the pressure is on for the likes of Derick Brassard to start playing like a top-line center. On his first shift against the Ducks, Ryan Kesler buried him with a🍎 big hit, then beat 🐼him on a face-off. Second shift, he lost a face-off to Rickard Rakell, who then shoved Brassard’s face into the ice. There’s your scouting report on No. 16. He pretty well disappeared for the rest of the night. Things didn’t go much more smoothly for Brassard against the likes of Anze Kopitar and Vinny Lecavalier in Los Angeles, either.

But Brassard is flankeไd again by Rick Nash, who coach Alain Vigneault is hoping will soon find his form. Nash has played just four games since coming back from his 20-game absence due to a deep left-leg bone bruise. But the game Nash is bringing sure looks familiar — unending hustle, terrific defensive sensibilities — and no goals. Those types of players don’t make $7.8 million a year.

How about the addition of Eric Staal at the deadline, the annual going-for-it move? Great veteran guy in the room, the ability a🌞nd want to go to the front of the net — but a drag on the pace at which Vigneault wants to play. Of course, after 12 years in Carolina, that learning curve is steep, and improvement is possible, if not probable. But when?

Captain Ryan McDonagh and alternate Marc Staal have held down the defensive fort from the left side, but former stalwart defenseman Dan Girardi has been an♉ absolute liability with the puck, only offset by his fearless play without it. Dan Boyle continues his adventures in learning how to play fewer than 22 minutes.

But the answer is not♒ swapping the 39-year-old Boyle for Dylan McIlrath whenever the 23-year-old rookie can return from his right-kneecap injury. Nor is the answer bringing up 21-year-old blueliner Brady Skjei. Forget any big difference Marek Hrivik could make up front or the chance that Pavel Bꦑuchnevich could fly in from Russia to contribute much-needed offense in his first NHL experience under the brightest lights.

These are the Rangers. They have an enviable will and a competitive☂ness that is hardly matched. They have the huge advantage of Lundqvist. They are an extremely good team, better than 90 percent of the league. They can ride the muscle memory of past experience quite far into the late spring.

But they know they need to be better to get their hands🦹 on the Cup, and the only change can come from within. If not, this will be one more season of squandꦬered expectations.