Players and coaches are often hesitant to add significance to a single game or a single road trip. But the Rangers weren’t playing coy just before they left for California on Monday.
Asked if the trip is going to be a measuring stick of how good they are, Rick Nash flat-out agreed.
“I think that’s a good way to look at it,” he said after Sunday’s practice.
The trip might start in Anaheim, Calif., on Wednesday against the top overall team in the league, the Ducks. And it might end in San Jose on Saturday in a place where the Rangers were humiliated near the start of last season’s nine-game road trip. (Remember Tomas Hertl, and his fourth goal in a 9-2 Sharks win coming with his stick in between his legs?)
But between those two contests, on Thursday night, is the one game that will mean the most. That would be in Los Angeles, where the Rangers (21-11-4) haven’t been since Game 5 of the Stanley Cup final, that epic double-overtime thriller that ended with Alec Martinez’s rebound goal and the Kings celebrating their second championship in three seasons.
“I think it will always be in the back of the memory,” Nash said. “I think the rest of your life, whenever you say LA, that memory will come up. But in saying that, it’s a new season, so it doesn’t really matter what happened last season.”
Yes, this is a new season, and that’s something the Rangers keep bringing up, as well. During those 25 playoff games, Nash had three goals — none of them particularly important. In the first 36 games of this regular season, Nash has 24 goals, second-most in the league behind the Stars’ Tyler Seguin. The importance of his play now, especially as the Rangers have won 10 of their past 11, has earned him some Hart Trophy buzz as league MVP.
But beating up on the Panthers and Sabres, as the Blueshirts have done over the past week, is a lot different than going out west and coming back unharmed. Because out there, the play is harder and faster and there are no easy nights.
“At the end of the day, the teams that win, whether East or West, are teams that play the right way,” coach Alain Vigneault said. “They check when they have to check, and when they’ve got the puck, they put it in areas where they can create some opportunities, and they go to the front of the net, that’s where you score some goals.”
Nash has been going to the front of the net and playing with a reckless abandon that might be tempered a bit in a different style of game.
“I just feel it’s big, they can forecheck, there’s not much space,” Nash said generally of the Western Conference. “There is a bit more space when you play games in the East.”
Space will be limited, and surely Nash can count on seeing quite a bit of star defenseman Drew Doughty out in LA, just like he did this past June.
But like they’ve said, this is a new season, and this isn’t the Stanley Cup final. But one thing in common is the Rangers are going to come back with a better sense of who they are.
“We’ll be playing against some pretty good teams,” Nash said. “It’s going to test our road game, our [overall] game against some good competition, for sure.”
Vigneault had said Sunday that backup goalie Cam Talbot was going to get one of the three starts, but would not disclose which one.
Forward Anthony Duclair played in the Gold Medal game of the World Junior Championships on Monday night in Toronto, with Rangers assistant general manager Jeff Gorton expected to be in attendance. Vigneault said the team has the available salary-cap space to bring Duclair back once he is available, and that seems likely.
If he doesn’t return to the Rangers, he would be sent back to his junior team in the QMJHL, and would not be able to return until late May.