Blast from the past
McDonagh and Girardi returining to face Rangers is bittersweet
THIS is a night on which worlds collide, when Rangers Past confronts Rangers Present while Rangers Future remains an embryonic concept.
And this 2017-18 Garden finale is a night for old times’ sake to merge with “Auld Lang Syne” because Dan Girardi and Ryan McDonagh are coming back home.
Sing no sad songs, though, for the sidekicks who had about as good a run on Broadway as Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom. For they come to town with their new team from Tampa Bay locked in a battle for the Eastern Conference’s first seed while their old team can only bemoan the fates while its competitive nature costs it percentage points almost by the day in the lottery drawing.
Girardi was a Ranger from the AllStar break in 2006-07 until last June’s buyout and McDonagh was a Ranger from Jan. 7, 2011 until the trade on Feb. 26 that sent the captain away. They played as a pair for the first time on Feb. 25, 2011 in Washington and they are playing as a pair now.
Beginning with the 2010-11 season, the McDonagh-Girardi pair has played more five-on-five minutes together than any and every other tandem, according to calculations performed at my request by naturalstattrick.com.
The two had been together for 5,373 minutes, all of but 89 of them as Bluebloods, entering the Lightning’s match in Boston on Thursday. The Sharks’ Justin Braun-Marc-Édouard Vlasic duo was next at 4,885 minutes, nearly 500 minutes fewer than No. 27 and No. 5 had logged. The Blackhawks’ Duncan Keith-Brent Seabrook tandem followed at 4,862 minutes. Roman Josi and Shea Weber are next at 4,523 minutes for the Predators with the Wild’s Jared Spurgeon-Ryan Suter pair rounding out the NHL’s top five.
This was an uncommon, if imperfect, union on Broadway of two men whose fabric and fiber helped define the era that just passed before our very eyes. They left pieces of themselves on the Garden ice and on rinks across the league, did Girardi and McDonagh, hockey warriors who distinguished themselves with the integrity they brought to their team night after night after night.
Neither was flashy, though when McDonagh came up those first few years before injuries took their toll, boy how he could fly while leaving would-be forecheckers frozen in place. He was for a time as to close to Brad Park or Brian Leetch as the Rangers ever had before a course correction was set into motion by Alex Burrows’ dastardly hit that damaged his shoulder in the final two weeks of 2013-14.
There was a second shoulder injury at the end of October the following year, and then other issues: a concussion, a blow to the jaw, a broken hand, and other unidentified matters. The captaincy he was awarded prior to 2014-15 to fill the vacancy created by Ryan Callahan’s trade to Tampa Bay the previous deadline, seemed as much a burden as a reward. Soon — too soon — McDonagh was no longer ascending, but instead had plateaued. Free agency was coming up, the Rangers were going down and then, well, McDonagh had joined his old running buddy, along with J.T. Miller, Anton Stralman and the again-injured Callahan, on Stevie Yzerman’s team.
Yes, of course, the Game 5 overtime goal against the Capitals in the 2015 second round that triggered a rally from a three-games-to-one deficit to win the series is the singular highlight moment of McDonagh’s Rangers career. But No. 27 was never a greater profile in courage than he was over the final three games of the 2015 conference finals against the Lightning, which he played with a broken foot.
I’ll tell you what I’ll never forget. Game 6 of that 2015 series in Washington, when the Rangers, who had been up 4-1 early in the third, were hemmed in their own zone essentially the remainder of the match, out-attempted 32-0 — yes, 32-0 — over the final 14:41 as the Caps stormed back to within 4-3. With 8:28 to go, Alex Ovechkin blasted McDonagh into the boards from behind. The captain unfolded himself and went to the room, returning about four minutes later.
And then, with the Caps ravenous and Ovechkin stalking his prey, Henrik Lundqvist, in front, McDonagh broke his stick across The Great 8’s back with as fierce a crosscheck as you’ll ever see. That’s the exchange for which I will always remember McDonagh, as honest as they come.
Now, he and his partner return to the Garden at the vortex of Past, Present and Future. McDonagh and Girardi; Girardi and McDonagh. They should be showered with respect and admiration. When they were here, the Rangers were almost fab.
A fan base owes them its thanks.