KIND OF BLUE
Girardi may wear new color, but will always be Rangers royalty
ON Jan. 12, Dan Girardi was sharing his memories with me of Steven McDonald, the inspirational NYPD Detective who had died two days earlier and for whom the Rangers’ Extra Effort Award is named.
In the course of the conversation Girardi casually said, “I never won the award, but …” and I thought, “What?”
So now, let us stipulate there never has been a Ranger more deserving of a lifetime Steven McDonald Award than the 33-year-old defenseman, who is the personification of what any organization looks for in a player, what any player looks for in a teammate, and the embodiment of what any individual looks for in a friend.
There is no reason to sing a sad song for Girardi, who will continue his NHL career somewhere else when he becomes a free agent on July 1 after being bought out of the final two years of his contract. He has been well compensated, has a loving family and a full life in front of him.
But there is a need to offer appreciation for what Girardi brought to the Rangers and what he meant to the organization from the moment he arrived on the scene during the 2006-07 AllStar break and began leaving pieces of himself behind on the Garden ice.
Girardi replaced Darius Kasparaitis on the roster and Thomas Pock in the lineup when he made his NHL debut in Philadelphia on Jan. 27, 2007, paired with Fedor Tyutin. The Rangers were out of a playoff spot and in need of a change when he was summoned from AHL Hartford.
Actually, it had been projected that the team would promote Brandon Dubinsky. Instead, it was Girardi, who had been signed as an undrafted free agent the previous July. “Daniel Girardi,” in fact, is what he was called at the time. Number 46 is what he wore.
“He’s very steady and makes a good first pass,” Tom Renney, then the Blueshirts’ coach, said following the defenseman’s first practice on Jan. 25, 2007. “He’s very reliable, plays his position very well.
“I think we have a guy who can help us and give us a chance.”
Including the playoffs, he played 357 consecutive games before missing a pair with a rib injury midway through 2010-11. Including the postseason, Girardi played 760 of a possible 765 games over the first nine seasons of his career, making the first pass, clearing the front, blocking shot after shot after shot.
He was the prototypical Blackand-Blueshirt, who earned a spot in the 2011-12 All-Star Game midway through a season in which he was then-coach John Tortorella’s fantasy come to life and finished sixth in the voting for the Norris Trophy.
This wasn’t just some plug, some bazooka who absorbed shots. This was a defenseman who could play, who could ignite the rush and who could join it, even if he was at times miscast on the right point on the power play. He was trustworthy, he was steadfast. All he wanted to do was play.
Girardi played his first year and a half with Tyutin. He played most of 2008-09 with Wade Redden as his partner. And then, with a couple of interludes through which he skated with Michael Del Zotto or Keith Yandle, it was Girardi on the right with either Marc Staal or Ryan McDonagh for just about the rest of his career on Broadway.
It wasn’t Gee-Whiz. It was just, G. That was good enough. The game got faster. He did not. The injuries through which he played took their toll.
How’s this to put a wrap on Girardi’s career as a Ranger? He broke two ribs in Game 3 against Montreal and another one early in the Ottawa series. And played on. Of course he did. He played with a right ankle twice its normal size after wearing some sort of vacuum device on it for weeks so he could get on the ice after sustaining a gruesome wound blocking a shot. Of course he did.
I happened to take notice of it as he walked very slowly to the shower in Ottawa after the crushing Game 5 overtime defeat. “That’s your ankle?” I said aloud in wonderment, as much to myself as to Girardi. He merely shrugged.
All right. The contract. The sixyear, $33 million deal that in some quarters overwhelmed the narrative the past couple of seasons. Remember, Girardi was a pending free agent as the 2014 trade deadline approached. The Rangers, who had designs on winning the Stanley Cup and had no interest in a rebuild, were about to trade Ryan Callahan, also a pending free agent, after negotiations with him broke down.
There is not a team extant under those circumstances that would not have signed Girardi to that extension. I believe that. That year, the Rangers went to the Stanley Cup final. The next year, they won the Presidents’ Trophy and went to Game 7 of the conference final, through which Girardi played with a Grade 1 MCL sprain. Of course he did.
Time marches on and so does Girardi. It was time. And it is time to acknowledge one of the toughest and best Rangers of them all.
Dan Girardi, Heart Trophy winner.