In pinball parlance, the New York Rangers won't be seeing tilt flash before their eyes Tuesday but probably "1940, 1940, 1940" if the game's over and all is lost.
The Rangers still have another turn to keep the puck in play for the big payoff, their first Stanley Cup since 1940. But those pesky Vancouver Canucks are right over their shoulders, longing to push them aside and create their own history with one last win against the favored Rangers.
Come 8 o'clock Big Apple time Tuesday, jittery, disbelieving New Yorkers will be taking their seats at Madison Square Garden, unsure if they really want to be around for such history in the making.
If the Broadway Blues bulldoze through the suddenly physical Canucks, all will be forgiven and the historic celebration that much sweeter for those hardy Rangers fans.
But if, curses, the Canucks vanquish the Rangers for good, extending that non-Cup streak of injuries, bad luck, displacement, you name it, to 54 years, the riot police gathered along Broadway should be prepared for a switch.
"Car 54, where are you? Another fainting victim claiming amnesia at Eighth Avenue and 33rd, stopping traffic cold. Swoop him up and take him to Bellevue, along with that fella at Penn Station peeling his clothes and claiming to be Rangers coach Mike Keenan's alter ego."
Yes, the crazies will be out big time Tuesday night, no matter which way the hockey game tilts. The fans, and even some in the New York media, should be crazed for their part in adding to the team's pressure.
If ever there was a "Dewey Beats Truman" analogy in the history of sports presumption, then Rangers fans and even city officials rate first for their cavalier, let's-plan-the-parade attitude before Game 5.
In this, we find a saying in Proverbs 27: 14 that might come back to haunt the Rangers' faithful: "He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him."
Consider that "The Cup Stops Here" was the blaring headline in the New York Post as the Rangers, up 3-1 in the series, prepared to claim their first Cup in 54 years and first ever by winning at home.
Listeners to sports radio WFAN in New York couldn't decide whether captain Mark Messier should pass the Cup first to Brian Leetch, the stellar defenseman then leading in MVP consideration, or perhaps goalie Mike Richter, whose netminding for at least this season banished Eddie Giacomin to the twilight zone.
Another hot topic was the chant Rangers fans should bellow in unison, a monumental decision considering the long favored "Potvin sucks" is appropriate in the Garden for just about every occasion.
But true Rangers fans must have shuddered knowingly when defenseman Jeff Beukeboom was ejected early in Game 5.
And what of those ominous reports sending Keenan to the Detroit Red Wings for his next reclamation project?
Yet after the Canucks packed away Game 5, had the lessons been learned? Not if you read the New York papers, where the message was: "Relax, the Cup is in the bag."
So much for relaxing. The Canucks gained their first-ever home win in a Cup final Saturday. They could join the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs as the only ones to win the Cup after trailing 3-1. And they could put in the dagger on the Rangers' ice, where the 1972 Boston Bruins also won the Stanley Cup.
The drama and excitement of this series are all to the good for the National Hockey League, but oh so fraught with disaster for the Rangers, facing a different look next season because of salaries and even a coaching change.
Nothing should be taken for granted, not even with home ice. And for whomever still assumes the time is definitely now for the Rangers, keep in mind what Shakespeare wrote for Hamlet in Act I, Scene V: "The time is out of joint, O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!"
