Look ahead with quick glance back
THE video tribute came before the game, the Rangers giving their due to Ryan McDonagh, Dan Girardi and J.T. Miller, who once were part of deep playoff runs in New York and now will shoot for the Cup in Tampa Bay.
The battered fans at the Blueshirts’ Garden finale responded with a resounding ovation.
“It was a cool experience, what they did for us,” Miller said following the Lightning’s 7-3 wipeout of his former team Friday. “It was definitely emotional.”
Miller, who has landed on a line with Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov, recorded a goal and an assist in 16:33. Girardi scored the final garbage-time goal while getting 18:47. McDonagh logged 23:01.
The defensive pair that plays together, thinks together, and what both McDonagh and Girardi were thinking as they walked into the Garden together Friday night was that it was “weird.”
“It all kind of hit me, walking into the building and remembering all the times I had represented the Rangers,” McDonagh, sent to Tampa Bay with Miller at the Feb. 26 trade deadline. “I was asking questions about where to go. It was a weird feeling for sure.”
This final home game of the season for the Rangers marked the only Garden appearance by the Lightning, with whom Girardi had signed over the summer after having been bought out following 11 seasons wearing the Blueshirt.
“It’s definitely a weird feeling. Me and Mac went to Starbucks, and as we were walking over a lot of fans thanked us for our years here,” Girardi said. “That was quite nice.”
There were guys named Rob O’Gara, John Gilmour, Lias Andersson, Ryan Spooner and Ryan Sproul on one side. Guys named McDonagh, Girardi, J.T. Miller, Anton Stralman and (injured) Ryan Callahan on the other.
Like sands through the hourglass.
“The team is a little bit different over there,” Girardi noticed.
Henrik Lundqvist, awarded the Steven McDonald Extra Effort Award before the match, backed up in this one. That allowed him the time to watch so many of his former teammates, ones with whom he’d gone to conference finals and the Stanley Cup final, playing for the other side.
“I’m sure that there will be times during the game that I’ll think about it and appreciate what they brought to the team and how they helped me,” Lundqvist told The Post before the match. “Mac is so new, but when Dan happened, I thought about how good he was at shutting down the other team’s top players.
“Even the other night in Washington, I was thinking about how he would go up against [Alex] Ovechkin. He was such a big part of our matchups and the way we played. He was such a big part of us winning.
“You know he’s not there. At least I do,” said the netminder. “The style he played, we haven’t seen it since he left.”
McDonagh and Girardi have been a matched set since they were united at the start of the 2011-12 season. What the buyout tore asunder, the trade mended. The Inseparables had been together for 140 minutes in the 10 games McDonagh had played for Tampa Bay on top of the 6,824 minutes they’d been paired as Rangers.
“It’s pretty surreal,” McDonagh said. “It wasn’t even a year, but it seemed a lot longer. It feels like old times.”
McDonagh talked about the bond he had with his Rangers teammates. And when he did, it was clear that was already in the past tense.
“Ask anybody about me — I care so much about the guys in the room,” No. 27 said. “There’s a ton of skill here and a great hockey culture that they’ve built. That takes a couple of years. Everybody is very hungry to win every night and trying to accomplish something special.
“I want to show this group I care. I want to play up to the expectations they have for me in Tampa. I want to be a part of the group success. I’m all in.”
The Lightning skipped back into first place in the Atlantic by a point over the Bruins, who have two games in hand. They are an acknowledged power. The Rangers, after so many years as a contender, well, they are something else altogether.
“Things change in sports,” Lundqvist said. “We had some great times when they were here, and you appreciate that.
“But now you try and move forward.”
With the past in plain sight.