New York Rangers Notes

Rangers vs. Oilers: Suspending Disbelief

For the nightmare that this Rangers season has been, it's been nice to enjoy a few games that are compelling on their own terms.

Eric Kohn

17 Mar 2025 — 6 min read

Apologies that these Game Notes are a little late today. Joe was going to do them but he is, apparently, without internet at work. I can't imagine how he's dealing with that since, as everyone knows, Wi-Fi is now the lowest level on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I, however, prefer to imagine him as Jonny from Airplane and the actual culprit of this supposed outage:

It's the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge who is credited with coining the term "suspension of disbelief" in the early 1800s. The concept, however, dates back as far as Greek and Roman theater. Today, we mostly use it in reference to movies and TV shows. We accept the reality of the fictional world presented to us on its own terms, even when it doesn't jive with what we know as reality outside of the movie theater or off our TV screen. It's what allows us to enjoy a movie like The Mighty Ducks for what it is, instead of dwelling on details like how The Flying V would never work, or that there's no way a drop pass to the goalie for a "knucklepuck" wouldn't involve at least two separate penalties.
Why do I bring all this up? Because it's the suspension of disbelief that's allowed me to actually enjoy the last two games the New York Rangers have played. The 4-0 win over Columbus, against a team they're now battling with for the playoffs, was enjoyable. I can accept the narrative of that game on its own terms, and set aside all that I knew that led up to it, particularly the catastrophe that was November and December.
It's similarly true with the game against the Oilers last night. It was a pretty well played hockey game by the Rangers, albeit one that resulted in a disappointing 3-1 loss. I was annoyed when that shot by Viktor Arvidsson deflected off Zac Jones's stick and into the top of the net to give the Oilers the lead. I hung my head when Connor McDavid did Connor McDavid things and effectively salted the game away with less than four minutes to play. My disbelief was suspended, and I enjoyed it (to the extent one can enjoy a 3-1 loss) on its own terms.
I want to be clear here: I'm not back on the bandwagon or anything like that. I don't think this team is on the precipice of a run to the Cup Final if they can just sneak into the playoffs. They aren't "back." I accept this season for what it is, for what the players made it when they quit trying for six weeks. But I won't deny it was enjoyable to again watch a few games with borderline playoff intensity and to not have my predominating state of mind be cold detachment from it all.
The Rangers deserved a better outcome than what they got last night. There are no moral victories in sports, and there are certainly no moral victories in games where you need points if you're actually serious about a playoff push. The Rangers played well enough to win. But they didn't win. When you zoom out, I'm not so much annoyed about last night's loss as I am by the string of losses back when they weren't even displaying a fraction of the effort and tenacity that was on the Madison Square Garden ice last night.
We're going to need to restart the talk about extending Will Cuylle. Because this kind of play? These kinds of goals? Dirty ones and not pretty ones? More of that please. More of this kind of effort.