A tale of two franchises: How winning a Conference Title means nothing in the greater scheme of things

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. —

This will likely be seen as a pot-shot at Rangers fans, but it absolutely isn’t at all. It is instead a look at the dichotomy of two franchises located about 10 miles from each other in the same sport.

While getting to the Stanley Cup Finals is, by all marks, a great achievement — it should never been seen as satisfactory if nothing else follows.

When I was asked in 2012 by my mate +Joel The Mouth whether getting to the Finals and losing to the Kings was something to celebrate, I said “no.” Was it fun? Yes! Did I love the Adam Henrique moment? I rank it in the top 3 moments in the franchise’s history.

But there was no banner-raising the following January (thanks, Bettman Lockout No. 2).  And there is still a bitter taste of having been pretty much knocked to shreds by the Los Angeles Kings (even tho the team won two games — and lost the first two, at home, in overtime).

Every Rangers fan should be glad their team got to the Finals. But in this sport, not winning the Cup is a failure.

Then again, we’ve all experienced winning it thrice, whilst losing it twice. Perhaps we are just spoiled as a franchise where we can look at a run like 2012’s was and say it wasn’t anything but a failure?

Am I being too critical here?

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