Publisher: Rangers 101 | 24/7 News Coverage of New York Rangers Hockey | Sports Media 101

The New York Rangers have been many things in their 88-year history: the villain, the big-city big-budget fat cats, the retirement home for past-their-prime vets, and of course, perhaps most frequently, the underachievers. Plucky underdog is not a role this franchise historically fills, but it's the one these Blueshirts find themselves in as they get set to take on the Los Angeles Kings in the Stanley Cup Finals. Consider this: to get to the finals, the Kings knocked off the leagues second best team (the Anaheim Ducks), the fifth best team (the San Jose Sharks), and the defending champions, the powerhouse Chicago Blackhawks. You could make a compelling case that any of those three teams would best the Rangers more often than not in a best of 7 format. LA is just two years removed from winning the cup themselves, and have since added a 40-goal scorer in Marian Gaborik to a championship group that remains largely unchanged otherwise. So yes, the Rangers will be billed as the underdog headed into their first cup finals in twenty years; the overachiever, the team that overcame the personal loss of a star player to rally from a three-to-one deficit. But if these Blueshirts have taught us anything, it's not to write them off too soon.