WASHINGTON — They could have cued the soundtrack from the final scene of “The Sopranos.”
For down to the final seconds, down to the final moments as so many ice shavings through the hourglass of Game 4, the Rangers never stopped believing.
They believed they would score on Braden Holtby for the second time on this night. They believed they would find the way to send the match into overtime.
And now, belief is all the Rangers have on their side going home to the Garden facing Game 5 second-round elimination by the Capitals following Wednesday’s 2-1 defeat.
“We should believe off of the way we’ve played all year,” Rick Nash, scoreless again, told The Post. “Once you stop believing, you might as well pack it in.
“I’ve been on teams where you were just hoping,” No. 61 said. “That’s not the case on this team, not at all.”
The regular season in which the Blueshirts were the third-highest-scoring team in the NHL is gone now, the 82-game marathon further away than it appears in the rearview mirror. For regardless of the work ethic and urgency, the fact is the Rangers have scored a total of 16 goals in nine playoff games.
What’s more (or less), they have scored two goals in their last eight periods of hockey over a span of 164:20, with both of them off the stick of Derick Brassard, who has accounted for almost one-third (five goals) of the club’s postseason production.
“We didn’t have this problem [scoring] all year,” said Brassard, whose goal off a two-on-one feed from Marty St. Louis after a nifty hoist out of the defensive zone by Nash gave the Blueshirts a 1-0 lead at 6:12 of the second period. “That was a big goal from our line, and we needed it, but [the Caps] seem to have an answer for everything we do.
“That’s the frustrating part,” No. 16 said. “I feel we’re playing well but it’s not good enough.”
Yes, a year ago the Rangers rallied from 3-1 down for a seven-game, second-round victory over the Penguins, largely fueled by emotion in the wake of the passing of France St. Louis.
Yes, the Rangers are 11-3 when facing elimination over the last three tournaments. So it is not as if the Blueshirts are, in Nash’s words, going to pack it in.
Nevertheless, these Capitals are not those Penguins — much, much better in their own end and much, much more committed to detail and necessary dirty work — and these Rangers might not be last year’s Cup finalists.
For when up 1-0 on Wednesday, the Rangers couldn’t nail it down. The two Washington goals, both from 20-year-old Andre Burakovsky, were a direct result of New York turnovers.
First it was Chris Kreider coughing it up to Burakovsky along the defensive-zone wall before the winger cut across the zone and beat Henrik Lundqvist from the slot at 16:29 of the second.
That was one instance where it would have been better not to have seen Kreider.
Then it was Ryan McDonagh, who had been playing perhaps his most forceful game of the postseason, who gave it up along the right wall in the neutral zone, a turnover that allowed Burakovsky to sail in alone on the left side off a feed from Troy Brouwer before scoring from in close just 24 seconds into the third.
“I can’t put the puck in a guy’s skates and have him go in on a breakaway,” said the accountable captain. “I can’t.”
He can’t but he did, and the Rangers couldn’t. They couldn’t protect the lead. They couldn’t do a blessed thing on their only power play of the night.
They couldn’t get to two. They couldn’t get to overtime.
Sixteen goals in nine games.
Three defeats in this series by 2-1, 1-0, 2-1 after four 2-1 victories against the Penguins in Round 1.
“We haven’t struggled offensively like this all year,” Nash said. “That’s a large part of what makes this so frustrating.”
Of course, when the Rangers were rolling through the season, Nash was scoring 42 goals, carrying the team much of the way. Now, he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, his inability to produce having taken on a life of its own.
Five goals in 46 playoff games as a Ranger. If this doesn’t turn around for Nash, again diligent in every aspect of the game, it will stick with and on him forever.
The Rangers attacked. They sent their defensemen to the front in an attempt to obstruct Holtby’s view, sometimes both of them up at once. Alain Vigneault coached as if it were an elimination game, moving Dom Moore to the third line between Carl Hagelin and Kevin Hayes, limiting the ice time for the defensively vulnerable Keith Yandle-Dan Boyle third pair through the first two periods.
The Blueshirts played with urgency. They went to the high-traffic areas. They couldn’t get to two.
One man has scored over the last eight periods.
That is hard to believe.