The ironic part was that was the reputation the Rangers had earned over long stretches of this season. The Islanders, who did not enter the season with the same lofty expectations as the Rangers — last season’s Presidents’ Trophy winner — at least played hard in the majority of their games. But, like the Rangers, they could never win consistently.

It was your own imagination that put the pieces together around 11:30 or so, long past bedtime, shortly after the Islanders somehow blew a 3-0 third-period lead: Jude Drouin winning the overtime faceoff, pushing the puck to defenseman Bert Marshall, who slid it to his blue-line partner Dave Lewis, who dumped it into the Rangers’ zone.

The New York Rangers have already destroyed their own season. On Thursday, they took the New York Islanders down with them. The two New York teams have not really dignified themselves this year. We’ve catalogued it all,