In the end, Madison Square Garden was the haunted house that ended the New York Rangers’ season Tuesday night.
A late season swoon had them losing stretches of games and the post season had 
seemed to turn that around with a string of wins.
On Tuesday, MSG was the site of the final game of the year for New York as the Ottawa Senators were hungrier, faster and better than them.
“As long as we’re dogs and fighting in the ring there, at least we’re there,” Senators head coach Guy Boucher said. “Over or underdog, let’s leave it at dogs.”
Craig Anderson made 37 saves to get the win.
The Senators took the air out of MSG and the Rangers when Mike Hoffman and Mark Stone scored in the first period for a 2-0 lead.
Erik Karlsson scored in the middle frame for the Sens.
“It was a hard series,” Karlsson said. “I think we had to fight every game even though we weren’t playing the way we wanted in the third and fourth game. But again, it’s never easy, and they played a good game and they made it really hard for us, so credit to them. We have a long way to go here. We’re going to enjoy this for a little bit, and again, get back to work as soon as tomorrow.”
The power play was anemic in the series and was 0-for-4 in the loss.
Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider were the goals scorers for New York.
“We had a lot of chances that I think we let slip through our fingers,” Rangers center Derek Stepan said. “It’s a good team over there; don’t sell them short. They battled real hard, they played real strong games and they had that magic. Sometimes you’ve got to have a little bit of that.”
Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored an empty-netter to seal it.
[WATCH: All Rangers vs. Senators highlights | RELATED: Complete New York vs. Ottawa series coverage]
Henrik Lundqvist made 22 saves in taking the loss.
“I think we played well enough to win a lot of games here,” Lundqvist said. “We talked about it during the season that sometimes it is not about playing your best game, it is about finding a way to win games. They did that better than we did.”
The Senators face the winner of Game 7 between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington.
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