(Ed. Note: As the Stanley Cup Playoffs continue, we're bound to lose some friends along the journey. We've asked for these losers, gone but not forgotten, to be eulogized by the people who knew the teams best: The bloggers who hated them the most. Here is Kevin Schultz of SNY Islanders Point Blank fondly recalling the 2011-12 New York Rangers. Again, this was not written by us ... OK, by all of us. Also: This is a roast and you will be offended by it, so don't take it so seriously.)

By Kevin Schultz of SNY Islanders Point Blank

Easter came early this year, and for the first time in recent memory it didn't coincide with the other important April holiday on Long Island, Rangers Elimination Day.

There are two annual rites of spring in the New York hockey world; the first is the day that the Islanders are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs and the second is when the Rangers suffer an early playoff exit.

Of course, one of those plans didn't go as quietly into the night as it normally does this year. It took three rounds and 20 games — (cough) the Islanders won a Cup in 20 games or less three times (cough) — but the Rangers finally succumbed to being the playoff team we know and love.

We are gathered here today to not only trash the Rangers but also to acknowledge that despite looking like an actual good, young, solid team this year, they still blew it in the playoffs like always. Seriously, I think I speak for Long Island when I say you had us going for a while there. We were pretty worried about this one. This team wasn't some over-hyped tabloid gong show that snuck into the playoffs. They had an actual young core that plays very solid hockey in front of a stellar netminder and two big free agent signings that panned out quite nicely.

But, like clockwork, you didn't let us lose too much sleep over it.

Sure, I bet you're thinking that sounds like sour grapes. But you know how many Islander fans will buy a T-shirt this summer that says 'we didn't make the playoffs?'

The same amount of Ranger fans that will buy a 'we got trounced by our rival in the conference finals' shirt.

Rangers fans can go on and on about how terrible the Islanders are — and they've been pretty bad — but all that's really backed up by is that the Rangers are really good at being mediocre. It's like Patrick Stefan and Craig Smith in an empty net scoring contest: nobody wins.

In New York, it all depends on how you prefer your lackluster hockey. If you're partial to Long Island, you like getting your inevitable disappointment done with early on in the season knowing full well nothing after Feb. 1 is going to mean anything. In Manhattan, you can have your hopes strung out for a while, grasping to those few straws of hope until an opposing team that understands playoff hockey puts the final nail in the coffin. Hockey season in New York is a lot like life; you're doomed no matter what so it's just a matter of how you go out.

Both teams have had their Stanley Cups. The Islanders had a dynasty that's historic but now well in the rearview mirror, with Mike Bossy now doing NY Auto Giant ads (yet somehow WBAB still plays the same music). The Rangers last Cup is now 18 years removed, something that even makes this 25 year old who remembers it well feel old. That means all the kids turning 21 and now of drinking age in New York likely have better memories of Bobby Holik and Theo Fleury than they do Neil Smith or Mark Messier. That one, lonely Cup getting further in the rearview couldn't be more of a welcome sight. It's easily one of the more annoying and totally bizarre of recent times (I mean f.f.s., 62 combined regular season and playoff goals from… ADAM GRAVES?!). It's that weird bizarro time in the hockey world when we all got tricked into thinking Neil Smith was actually competent…

(Cue obligatory visual aides)

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