Captain Jaromir Jagr entered the Rangers locker room immediately after his team's loss the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday night that left them in a 3-0 hole and one game away from elimination. The room had the sound and the feel of a funeral home. Anxious reporters surrounded Jagr and waited for his comments. Instead of giving his team a eulogy, the 36-year-old native of Kladno, Czech Republic, gave them a challenge. He told them he still believed in them.

"I've got a very funny feeling about this series," Jagr said. "It's not over yet. That's just my feeling. I know not many people believe that, but we'll see...I truly believe we can change it. I'm not laughing. I believe."

Jagr then went out and backed up his words. In game four on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden, Jagr scored twice and set up another goal to lead the Rangers to a 3-0 win and keep their faint playoff hopes alive. The captain lifted the team up on his shoulders and carried them to victory.

It's a scenario that should be familiar to long-time Rangers fans. Fourteen years ago, another captain, Mark Messier, rescued the Rangers from the brink of elimination, made a guarantee and backed his words up with his performance on the ice. The Rangers beat the Devils in New Jersey in game six of the 1994 Conference Finals and went on to win their first Stanley Cup in 54 years.

Jagr still has a long way to go before he can match Messier's moment of 1994. The Rangers were prohibitive Stanley Cup favorites that year, and in danger of finding yet another way to lose and continue a jinx that had plagued the team for more than two generations. Messier also made a brash "guarantee" that hadn't been seen in New York since the days of Joe Namath or Reggie Jackson. But Jagr accomplished a similar feat in that he made his statement and then led his team to victory. To match Messier, of course, Jagr will have to prove it three more times in a row and then help the Rangers get through two more rounds of playoffs. But that shouldn't diminish what he did accomplished last night.

The difference between talented players and truly great players is that talented players perform well while the truly great help those around them to lift their games. Last night, Jagr was truly great.

Rookie Brandon Dubinsky just turned 22 earlier this week and is playing in his first Stanley Cup playoffs. He marveled at what Jagr has meant to the Rangers in the postseason.

"He's just been phenomenal, hands down the best player we've had in the playoffs," Dubinsky explained. "He's having fun out there and he's playing great as well. The big thing with him, he really believes we can come back and win the series. He really believes if we play the way we can that we can win some hockey games here. I think he's just leading by example with his play on the ice and putting guys on his back and having us follow."

It was clear from Dubinsky's voice that because Jagr believed the Rangers could still win, Dubinsky still had faith it could happen. He is not alone in the Rangers' dressing room in that belief.

Jagr opened the scoring last night at the 12:45 mark of the second period. He took a cross ice pass from Dubinsky, cut past Pittsburgh defenseman, Sergei Gonchar and beat Marc-Andre Fleury with a wrist shot through the five-hole. Immediately after releasing the shot, Jagr was decked in the head by Brooks Orpik. Instead of celebrating the goal, Jagr lay prone on the ice for almost a minute before slowly getting to his feet and skating off the ice. He didn't miss a shift.

In game four, Jagr played almost 20 minutes. He took four shots and had a part in all three Rangers' goals. He drew an assist on Dubinsky's power play tally in the first minute of the third period that made it 2-0 and he potted an empty-net goal with 14 seconds left that erased any lingering doubts about the outcome.

Rangers' coach Tom Renney was impressed. "He's a driven man right now and certainly for all the right reasons," Renney said. He wants this team to get back in the series and I think from the get go he's led the charge."

The Rangers also dominated on special teams, something that had been very costly to them in the first three games of the series. New York went 2-for-7 with the man advantage in game 4. In the first three games of the series, they had gone a combined 1-for-14. The Rangers also kept the Pens off the scoreboard in four power play chances.

Henrik Lundqvist also returned to form for the Broadway Blues, making 29 saves to earn his second career playoff shutout. Lundqvist stopped Evgeni Malkin on a penalty shot late in the second period just a few minutes after he stoned Ryan Malone on a shorthanded breakaway. At the time, the score was just 1-0 Rangers.

Right now, Jagr is leading all NHL players with 15 playoff points in just nine games. The other players in the top five all have played in more games than Jagr.

Jagr's contract is up at the end of this season and there is a chance that he will not return to the Rangers next season. There is also a chance he may not be in the NHL next year as rumors abound that one or more Russian teams will offer Jagr a lot of money to stay closer to home. In the final minute of yesterday's game, Rangers' fans saluted Jagr and urged him to return in 2008-09.

But right now, Jagr is concentrating on the task at hand: Helping the Rangers win hockey games and stave off elimination. After game four, Jagr continued to build his team's confidence. He also began a campaign to put some doubt in the minds of a Pittsburgh team that just lost its first playoff game in eight tries.

"They played game four and we played game seven," Jagr said. "The next game is game seven again for us. Hopefully, they're going to be a little bit nervous."

Teams have overcome 3-0 deficits in a best-of-seven series only twice in NHL history. The 1942 Maple Leafs who defeated the Red Wings and the 1975 New York Islanders who came back to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Isles won game seven in Pittsburgh 1-0 on a goal by captain Ed Westfall and some stellar goaltending by Chico Resch.

The Rangers know they still have a long way to go. But they are rallying around their captain and slowly gaining confidence.

"It's been impressive," Renney said of Jagr. "What he does is elevates the game of other people...We're going to need all that and more if we're going to pull this off. It is a single game at a time. We're going back to Pittsburgh still in the series. We've lived to play another day."