Tomorrow's story, if the Rangers win

That was exactly the effort we needed! They say "anything can happen in a Game 7," which is the awkward hockey equivalent of "any given Sunday," and anything sure as hell did. Torts was right - all the pressure was on Washington (no one expected us to win this game), and they were a little choked up on their sticks at first, but led by Alex Ovechkin, they came at us hard throughout. But we also came out with a jump, like we remembered the game mattered or something (I know, it's weird, right?), and it absolutely made all the difference.

First and foremost, my thanks go out to Henrik Lundqvist. "Stood on his head" is a phrase that doesn't quite carry the power I want to convey here - the dude was unimpeachable (despite a few impeachments from the Caps nonetheless). As they say, Lundqvist is the kind of goalie that gives us a chance to win every single game. He gave us this one, too.

But as you know, all the King can do is keep us in the game against a far superior team. We have to capitalize on that. And somehow, we did. Sean Avery was once again a presence on the ice - sure, he went to the box a bunch, but it was absolutely worth it. He took Mike Green, an otherwise very dangerous man, completely off his game, and our PK made every time worth it. Sean didn't do anything stupid, he just got penalized as if he had - what else is new? Freddie Sjostrom really stepped up to fill the metaphysically huge skates of Blair Betts and kept us in it every time Avery was unjustifiably sent off, which in turn allowed Avery himself to amp up his game.

More than his presence in Mike Green's head, though, it seemed like the rest of the guys caught the Avery bug. Everyone was finishing their checks, everyone was pursuing pucks deep, everyone was trying to win every battle. Even Markus Naslund hit somebody! I'm still not convinced I believe "safe is death" has really gotten through to everyone, but it seems to have worked just well enough.

Redden and Rozsival were a good second pair to Staal and Girardi. It took alternating both pairs to contain the Washington offense as much as we did, and both pairs came up big enough. Building out from a stellar performance by the King and solid work by our back 6, our forwards collectively brought a fight to the game that we hadn't seen in the previous 6. This game was not an easy one to win, but the Rangers made it fun to watch (it helped that we pulled it out in the end). Next stop: Boston.