Kreider comes to play in big games
Playoffs bring out the beast in young forward
NEW YORK — He speaks five languages, plays piano and reads Hemingway. His post-game choice of beverage is chocolate milk. When he answers questions, he does so thoughtfully and sprinkles his sentences with words like “exponentially” and “naive.”
In the words of his teammates, he is either “book smart” or a “weirdo.”
But right now, the adjective that best describes Chris Kreider is “beast.”
Along with goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, who has been fantastic during these entire playoffs, the 24-yearold Kreider is a big reason the New York Rangers will be playing in Game 7 against the Washington Capitals on Wednesday.
The Rangers were behind 3-1 in the Eastern Conference semifinal series and losing Game 5 when Kreider scored with 1:41 remaining in the third period to send it to overtime. Two nights later, he imprinted himself on Game 6 with two first-period goals as the Rangers won 4-3.
Forget Rick Nash. How do the Capitals stop Kreider?
“He’s an animal,” teammate J.T. Miller said. “He’s always shining in the playoffs. He’s just too strong and too fast and too big. When he wants to take it over like that, you can’t stop him.”
For Kreider, who is tied with Derick Brassard with a team-leading five goals this post-season, this is nothing new. He scored a career-best 21 goals in the regular season, but his college and pro careers have so far been defined by post-season success.
In three years at Boston College, Kreider won three pressure-filled Beanpot tournaments — a bragging-rights competition played between the four Boston-area universities. He was a member of two NCAA championship teams and the U.S. world junior championship club in 2010.
His springtime success in New York has vaulted him to another level of fan devotion.
Nine days after he won the second NCAA title, Kreider joined the Rangers for the 2012 playoffs before even playing a regular season game. He scored five goals in 18 games that year, including two game-winners. It was a whirlwind experience, said Kreider, who had jokingly told reporters he was throwing up between periods.
“I think that first year I was kind of full of ignorance and naive to the situation,” Kreider said. “I was put in a kind of a win-win situation. Just go out there and play. Not a whole lot of pressure. At the same time, if there’s anything to take away from those one-and-done games at the college level, as fun as they are and as much buildup as there is, it’s not fun if you don’t win.”
At six-foot-three and 226 pounds, Kreider seems to have a body and a playing style built specifically for the playoffs, when the games are more tightly checked and loosely officiated. He plays angry. And he has the strength to back it up. Type in Kreider’s name in YouTube and a video appears of him exploding out of waist-high water in a swimming pool, somehow managing to land feet first on the deck.
“He’s very powerful on the ice,” head coach Alain Vigneault said. “Not just his stride but his ability to retrieve pucks and hold onto pucks and take those pucks to the net. He’s such a strong player, real tough to handle one-on-one. We need him to play that way right now.”
Aside from scoring the Game 3 winner against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Kreider was quiet offensively in the first round of the playoffs. But even when he’s not scoring, you notice him. He is tied for fifth among forwards in the playoffs with 45 hits and his crease-crashing disregard for the opposing goaltender — he injured the Canadiens’ Carey Price in the post-season last year — might finally be getting to Washington’s Braden Holtby.
“I don’t think it’s fun for a D-man to go back and get the puck and hear him run — not skate, because it looks like he’s running — at you,” Rangers forward Carl Hagelin said. “That’s when he’s at his best.”
Ask Kreider if there is something about the postseason that brings out the best in him and he deflects the attention toward his linemates.
When pressed to talk about what is different with his own game, he replied, “Well, there’s obviously a level of desperation that’s not there in the regular season that’s exponentially increased.”
Indeed, he is averaging 0.31 goals per game in 52 career playoff games; an increase from the 0.24 he has averaged in 169 regular season games.
But it is not just his production that has increased. His chirp per game average has also spiked — not that anyone knows what exactly he is saying.
“The whole series he’s yelling at (Evgeni) Malkin from the bench in Russian,” Miller said. “You can’t help but laugh. It’s hilarious.”