Still Hope For These Lone Rangers

This is how close the New York Rangers came to being eliminated from the Stanley Cup final:

Yes hockey very much is a game of inches. Twice the Rangers were lucky as the puck stubbornly and inexplicably sat on the goal line behind Rangers' goalie Henrik Lundqvist. An extra inch or so literally preventing the Los Angeles Kings from hoisting Lord Stanley's Cup on Wednesday night.

Instead now the Rangers narrowly escape with a 2-1 victory in game 4 and finally get a win in this series. The teams fly back to Los Angeles for game 5 on Friday.

The Kings are still very much sitting pretty, and even the most pessimistic Kings fan has to feel pretty confident that it is just a matter of a time before their team closes out the Rangers and the Stanley Cup party can get underway.

But the hard-luck Rangers still have other ideas. With the victory the Rangers have sparked some hope back into their game. The 25 players/coaches in blue may be the only ones who have that hope, as the comeback task ahead of them is seemingly enormous. But with hope - fragile as it may be at this early stage - the task is not impossible.

These Rangers may be a lone in this belief, but it starts with hope found in the snow on the goal line.