Time in Tampa gives Goodrow unique insight

For Barclay Goodrow to want to come to New York after back-toback Stanley Cup runs with the Lightning, it says something about the Rangers.

In fielding questions about going up against his former team in the Eastern Conference Final ahead of Game 1 on Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden, Goodrow talked about the potential and the trajectory he saw in the Rangers when the Lightning traded his signing rights in the offseason.

From the way the organization had drafted in recent years and the deep pool of young talent, he said, the Rangers were a team that he wanted to play for.

“And it seemed like a perfect fit for myself,” Goodrow said Tuesday at MSG Training Center.

Every member of the Rangers knows what kind of challenge lays ahead, but Goodrow knows it better than all of them. He played 63 regular-season games and 42 playoff games with Tampa Bay over the previous two seasons and came away with two Cup rings.

The Lightning know what it takes, Goodrow pointed out, but the Rangers are just as hungry to figure that out for themselves.

“I think we want to be the best, and in order to be the best, you got to go through the best,” Goodrow said. “Obviously, they’re defending champs and put another great season together. Played well so far these playoffs. So I think we’re all excited about it. We’re excited about the challenge. The way our game has progressed not only in the playoffs but throughout the end of the season, I feel like each game of the playoffs we got a little better.

“I think Carolina brought the best out of us. And we still have another level where we know we can take it to.”

With the most anticipated goaltending matchup of the playoffs on deck, between the Rangers’ Igor Shesterkin and the Lightning’s Andrei Vasilevskiy, Goodrow has been lucky enough to compete in front of both star netminders.

For the record, Goodrow said he’d take Shesterkin “all day.”

But when it comes to beating Vasilevskiy, Goodrow is the one who knows what it takes. He noted that if Vasilevskiy can see the puck, the Tampa Bay goalie is going to make the save. Goodrow said the key will be to get to the blue paint, take away his view of the ice and create second chances around the crease.

“We have to make life extremely hard for him,” Goodrow said. “Just making his job difficult. And obviously we know his track record in the playoffs, what he can do, but it’s on us to make his job harder than it needs to be.”

➤ Top-line Lightning center Brayden Point suffered a lowerbody injury in Tampa’s Game 7 victory over Toronto in the first round. He has not practiced with the team since yet has not been ruled out for the remainder of the playoffs, but it’s looking like the Lightning’s initial diagnosis of Point as day-to-day is more of a week-to-week situation.