Rangers fail to make playoffs after shootout loss to Flyers

PHILADELPHIA - For two weeks, as the Rangers scrambled to make a last-ditch run at a playoff berth, they played as if they had nothing to lose. But Sunday against the Flyers, in a game they couldn't afford to lose - a game in which Henrik Lundqvist was sensational with 46 saves - they lost that aggressiveness.

As a result, with a 2-1 shootout loss to the Flyers in the regular-season finale, they failed to make the playoffs for the first time in five years. With 87 points, they finished ninth, one point behind the Flyers and Canadiens.

"We've been in the must-win situation for so long, we should have approached it that way," said Brandon Dubinsky, whose team went 7-1-2 in the final 10 games. "In the end, this was Game 7 and nobody wants to make that mistake. We were a little bit tentative. I think that could have been one of the reasons for them having so many chances and shots against us."

One of the reasons the Rangers struggled all season was a lack of scoring, and that fatal flaw reared its head again Sunday.

Jody Shelley's tip-in of Michal Rozsival's point shot 3:27 into the game gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead. They wound up with only four shots in the first period and 13 to the Flyers' 30 through 40 minutes - but thanks to Lundqvist, they still led 1-0.

Then, with P.A. Parenteau in the box for interference, Matt Carle fired in a rebound to tie it at 6:54 of the third. "It was such a -- call; it's tough to swallow," Parenteau said. "I don't even remember what I did."

Still, the Rangers held out hope that they could prevail in the shootout, especially with Lundqvist's outstanding play.

"I think we worked hard, but they were better tonight," said Lundqvist, who allowed shootout goals to Danny Briere and Claude Giroux in the first and third rounds. "They made good moves. I'm just so empty now, I don't know what to say."

Asked if shootouts are an especially cruel way to end a season, he muttered, "I guess."

Parenteau scored to tie the shootout at 1 after Briere's goal. But Brian Boucher, who had foiled Erik Christensen in the first round, got his pad on Olli Jokinen's backhander in the third round to put the Flyers in the postseason.

John Tortorella held 42-goal scorer Marian Gaborik out until the fourth round, which never arrived, and later refused to discuss the move.

In the end, had Gaborik, Christensen, Jokinen, Dubinsky, Vinny Prospal and Chris Drury provided more punch, this might have ended in regulation.

"It's disappointing to end it this way," said Gaborik, who tried to skate through defenders all afternoon but managed only two shots on Boucher.

"I felt like we couldn't hold on to pucks too long," Lundqvist said. "The fourth line was our best line the last two games; they played great, but it's going to be tough to win two games against Philly when your fourth line is your best line."

That line of Shelley, Artem Anisimov and Brandon Prust had seven shots and provided the most pressure in the Flyers' zone.

"We knew they were going to come hard and I thought we gathered ourselves through the second and third, but we just didn't have the puck enough," Tortorella said. "I thought they [the fourth line] were really good underneath the hashmarks. We just didn't get enough from our other lines."

Sounds like a theme for a lost season.