Stanley Cup Final: Jonathan Quick crashes NY Rangers' Madison Square ...

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The New York Rangers started this rollicking playoff run of theirs 54 days ago, on April 17. Maybe you remember. They beat the Flyers, 4-1, at the Garden and Brad Richards scored the game-winner and the ride was on, and it included two Game 7 victories and a stirring rally from a 3-1 deficit against the Penguins, a comeback that cost the Penguins' general manager and coach their jobs.

They played their best game of playoffs in a 1-0 triumph to close out the Canadiens in Game 6, making them most unlikely finalists. Who knew the fun was going to end right there, and that on the night of the first Stanley Cup Final game in town in 20 years, the Garden would wind up sounding as deflated as Belmont Park sounded a few minutes before seven o'clock on Saturday night?

The only good news is that the deflation didn't require overtime, as it did in Games 1 and 2 on the other coast.

'We have to hold serve, and we know that,' Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said before Game 3. The Rangers did not hold serve.

They carried the play for much of Monday night at the Garden, and outshot the Kings, 32-15, but the final score showed 3-0 in the World's Most Bummed Out Arena, and the biggest reason was Jonathan Quick, pride of Hamden, Conn., who had a stunning three periods in the Kings' goal, putting his team one victory away from its second Stanley Cup title in three years.

Quick was in goal for that one, too, and now at age 28, he has established himself as the biggest money goaltender around, and that includes Henrik Lundqvist, who has been a big part of the run but was the second -best goaltender in the building in the biggest game of the Rangers' season.

The widespread belief in this series was that apart from healthy doses of their speed and depth, the Rangers needed the great Lundqvist to steal a game. He almost did it in Game 1, when he turned away 20 shots in the third period alone, but could not do it Monday night, when the visitors were Kings of the counter-attack, the most crushing of them coming with .7 seconds left in the first period, seconds after a Rangers power play ended, when Jeff Carter ripped a wrist shot that deflected off Dan Girardi and past Lundqvist's glove.

Defenseman Jake Muzzin made it 2-0 on a power-play drive just over four minutes into the second period, another shot that hit a Ranger - this time Martin St. Louis - and changed direction and beat Lundqvist, and then Mike Richards made it 3-0 late in the second, racing down on a 2-1 with Trevor Lewis. Richards slid the puck over toward Lewis, but it hit Ryan McDonagh's skate and bounded right back to him, and Lundqvist, ancitipating the pass, couldn't get back in time.

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Quick, meanwhile, was impenetrable, kicking out his left pad to deny Brad Richards on the power play midway through the second, then covering the rebound before a lurking Derick Brassard could do any damage with it.

He denied Brassard and Benoit Pouliot soon after and then delivered his best stuff of the night against Rick Nash, who hurtled toward him on the right side and tried to jam it home on the short side. Nash scrambled and recovered the puck behind the net and looked as if he had a wide-open net for a wraparound, before Kings' defenseman Drew Doughty hooked him and saved an almost certain goal.

By the time the third period came, the Rangers' hole felt deeper than any crater on Eighth Ave., and any chance for hope kept on getting snuffed by Quick, who steered away another Brassard tip-in attempt with just nine minutes to play.

The Kings, of course, climbed out from a three-game deficit in their first round series against the San Jose Sharks (did this team really lose its first two playoff games by a combined score of 13-5?) , but it's hard to fathom the Rangers pulling off the same feat, especially when they go 0-for-6 on the power play, as they did Monday night.

'It's been nine periods of real good hockey so far,' Vigneault said beforehand. 'Could have gone one way or the other. They're up 2-0. Give them full credit. We're going to try to make this a series tonight.'

They did not, and so the biggest hockey night in 20 years came and went, Jonathan Quick ruining everything.

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