NEW YORK -- When the end finally came, they went out with a whimper, not with a bang.

Then the Rangers, who have to be considered among the biggest flops in the history of sports, stood looking stunned, completely shocked by an inevitable and expected end to another season, their sixth in a row without a playoff appearance.

	The biggest payroll in the league couldn't get the Rangers into the playoffs.

"We had all the desperation we needed," Mark Messier said after the 2-1 defeat against the New Jersey Devils that finally forced his team to face its sad reality. "We just got shut down by a team that played an excellent game."

Stretch-drive defeats against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Florida Panthers and Atlanta Thrashers already crashed the Rangers' chances, even if they wouldn't or couldn't admit it.

The Devils were just the ones who made it official.

The team from the other side of the Hudson River is the constant reminder of what the Rangers haven't been able to get done.

It's been nine years since the glorious night when Messier grabbed hold of the Stanley Cup and ended a 54-year hex, the greatest achievement of his incomparable career.

In the stands, one of their fans raised a banner, one that became the centerpiece of the wild celebration. And it said:

"Now I Can Die In Peace."

Sometimes it seems that the whole franchise was willing to settle for that one shining moment. And that's all they got.

By the time the team raised its official banner to the Madison Square Garden ceiling, half a season had been gobbled up by a labor war, and the Rangers' momentum was entirely gone.

The Devils, meanwhile, who had come within a double-overtime of stopping the Rangers championship run in Game 7 of a remarkable Eastern Conference final in 1994, were just rising.

They won their first Stanley Cup in '95, and have been contenders ever since, winning another championship in 2000, taking the Cup final to seven games in '01.

The Rangers are stars. The Devils are a system.

"That's a team that's played well for a lot of years in a disciplined system," said Brian Leetch, the Rangers stellar defenseman, a Conn Smythe winner who hasn't seen a playoff game since 1997. "We've had problems against teams that are able to shut down the neutral zone. And they did it again to us tonight."

"That's their game," said Mike Dunham, the goalie who took over for Mike Richter this year. "They're getting ready for next week."

The Devils can lose a player of Bobby Holik's caliber and still stay on top because Lou Lamoriello, the prickly personality who runs the club, has maintained a clear and present vision of his team, even through a run of different coaches.

Glen Sather's team, meanwhile, is a mess.

Sather, a small-market hero when he kept Edmonton in contention on a budget, just adopted the Rangers' standard plan, buying up $80 million worth of talent that doesn't mesh together.

Still, Sather maintains a love-lock on his job.

"Glen is going to be with us for a long time," said Jim Dolan, the Cablevision scion whose family owns the team. "Basically for as long as he wants."

Two months ago when Sather decided to replace Bryan Trottier behind the bench with himself, Dolan joined him in guaranteeing a playoff slot.

Friday night, Dolan could only offer a promise to slash ticket prices by 10 percent if the team does not end its franchise-record postseason drought next year.

Soon, he might be making the same promise to Knicks fans when the basketball team he owns misses the NBA playoffs a second consecutive time.

"The disappointment," Dolan said Friday night, still offering Sather his unconditional support, "is that I think we all believed that if we could get into the playoffs, we could go a long way."

People around the league thought so, too.

They just knew it wouldn't happen.

So the Rangers close their season on the road in Montreal, then slink off into another early summer.

While the rest of the NHL chases the Cup, they will wait for Mark Messier to announce he will come back, at 42, for another year. And for Brian Leetch to sign a new contract. And for Eric Lindros to remember how to play the game.

The Rangers will make big moves in the market and dream big dreams.

Then they will be stunned when things go wrong again.

They have been a bad hockey team for half a dozen years now. But of all the players in the room Friday night, Holik, who chose the Rangers' cash over the Devils' chances, was the only one who seemed to realize what was coming.

"It's not like we were playing great and out of the blue lost one game and didn't make the playoffs," Holik said. "That's not the case at all."

They went out with a whimper, not with a bang.

But what else did you really expect?

Barry Stanton is a frequent contributor to ESPN.com.