The Captain has spoken.
“It gets really simple at this time of year,’’ Mark Messier told The Post over the phone Friday afternoon, on the eve of the Rangers win-or-go-home Game 6 game against the Panthers Saturday night in Florida. “You’ve got to believe you can win.’’
The Panthers — who put the Rangers in a 3-2 series hole in the Eastern Conference Final with a 3-2 win Thursday night at the Garden — have spent the better part of these five games placing doubts in the minds of the Presidents’ Trophy winners.
Messier, who famously captained that ’94 Rangers team that was the last to hoist the Stanley Cup and parade the chalice down Broadway, has been watching his former team from afar — mostly in the TV studio where he’s been analyzing the Stanley Cup Playoffs for ESPN.
And all the while, he has been quietly rooting for this group to do what his iconic 1994 team did 30 years ago.
Messier said he sees stark parallels to the two teams’ respective plights 30 years apart as the Rangers enter Game 6 facing elimination — same way his ’94 team went to New Jersey staring at a 3-2 series deficit before beating the Devils to get back to the Garden, where they would survive and advance to the Cup Final.
On the May 25 back page of The Post, Messier’s famous words screamed: “WE’LL WIN TONIGHT.’’
It was a real, live Joe Namath guarantee, and Messier and the Rangers, of course, would go on to back his words up that night — and more.
“It was calculated,’’ Messier said of his guarantee. “Because I knew we were all going to be driving over on the bus to New Jersey together and everybody would be reading the same paper.
“As a captain, you’re always monitoring the team and what it needs, when it needs to be pushed, when it needs to be coddled, hugged, loved — all the things that you’re kind of monitoring the whole time.
“I knew how close we were, and we needed to figure out a way to win a game, so I was willing to do or say anything if I thought it would help us. Now, whether it helped us or not, I don’t know. But the way the team responded, I think we all bit down on our mouth bits a little bit tighter a little bit harder and came up with a win.’’
Messier said he made the guarantee “because I wanted the players to know that we could win.’’
“We’d proven it all year,’’ he added. “Any big game that we had, we answered the bell. We won every big game that we needed to that year, and there was no reason why we couldn’t go and win that game.’’
Messier made no guarantees on Friday over the phone between shots during an afternoon round of golf, but that’s what the Captain wants this group to believe.
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This Rangers team, which set an NHL record with 34 comeback victories this season, has answered the bell time and time again.
“That’s what they’ve got to remind themselves of,’’ Messier said. “At this point now, you throw all the numbers out the window. I don’t care who scored who hasn’t scored. This is just another opportunity to do something special, and that’s the way you’ve got to look at it with the Rangers this year.
“It doesn’t matter what just happened. It’s one game they’ve got to think about. That’s the way I’d be focusing on right now.’’
Messier vividly recalled those moments before Game 6 in Jersey in ’94.
“For us, down 3-2, we couldn’t expect New Jersey to come back to us,’’ he said. “We weren’t playing poorly. But we had to figure out a way to play better. So, for us to beat them, we had to figure out a way to play better. These Rangers are in that same kind of predicament. They’ve got to figure out to play better for 60 minutes.
“Belief is this powerful, powerful emotion for a team. To a man, you’ve got to believe you can win. And not just two or three or four guys believing that you can win. Everybody’s got to believe it.
“That was the whole genesis of why I said what I said — I was trying to get everybody’s mind right going into a game we had to win.’’
Asked if he sees the kind of team in these Rangers that can overcome 3-2 down staring at Cup elimination, Messier said he does.
Why?
“Because they play like a team,’’ he said. “That’s what I love about them. That’s why they’re an easy team to cheer for. That’s the way we were in ’94. We might not have been the most skilled team, but we were the epitome of a team. And I love that about the Rangers this year. They genuinely play for each other, and you can see it in their body language on the ice and after games.
“They’ve gotten punched in the nose a few times trying to get to this point right now, and this is another hurdle that they have to climb over. There’s just no straight line to the Stanley Cup. You’re going to be tested at every turn. This is another test for them and they have to buckle down.
“They’re good enough to win, but they’ve got to play better and they can’t expect the Panthers to come back to them. They’ve got to figure out a way to match [the Panthers’] intensity, their tenacity, their desire, their hunger. All the things that we’ve seen in this series out there that Florida has done the Rangers have got to match that.’’
The Captain has spoken.
