FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — This was an example of exactly what has come to define the Rangers of recent vintage, and why they have so rarely gone into prolonged slumps.
It was Dominic Moore, the consummate professional, having just played a whale of a game Wednesday night in Tampa Bay, scoring the game-winning goal and being the catalyst for a stabilizing 5-2 victory over the Lightning that ended the 2015 calendar with some shimmering hope.
And Moore, asked about himself, asked to reflect, instead deferred. He knows as well as anyone that you climb out of a hole by putting your head down and going to work.
“I think we win or lose as a team, individually I just try to prepare the same way and hopefully keep improving as the season goes on,” Moore said. “That’s my mentality, and I think that’s the team’s mentality.”
So the Rangers enjoyed their day off Thursday, celebrating New Year’s Eve in South Florida before they’re set to return to practice Friday and game action Saturday against the Panthers in Sunrise, Fla. They are still 5-10-2 in their past 17 contests, and the win over so many old buddies on the Lightning broke an eight-game road winless streak (0-6-2) that was starting to redefine the Rangers in such unfamiliar terms.
These Blueshirts had 27 regular-season road wins in the past calendar year, tied for the most in the league, and alone for the most in the Eastern Conference. The number goes up to 32 when including the postseason, which is the most in the league. Moreover, this was the second straight calendar year when the Rangers led the league in combined regular-season and postseason wins, notching 65 victories on top of their 58 in 2014.
It draws a picture of who they are, and what they’ve accomplished — even if it hasn’t included a Stanley Cup. And it creates context to this recent slide, when it seemed like this team — younger by choice and by virtue of the pressing salary-cap ceiling — might have lost a bit of that experienced poise which had not allowed negativity to snowball.
Then there is a performance like the one Moore and his team had on Wednesday, and it’s clear that the ability to be that team is still there.
“It’s a big one, no doubt — but it’s just one win,” said Moore’s winger, Tanner Glass, who actually won the defensive-zone draw with less than two minutes remaining Wednesday and the Rangers holding a 3-2 lead after Moore was kicked out of the circle.
“We’re focused on putting a few of these together in a row and a good start to the new year.”
For Moore, life has hardly been simple. The Harvard graduate lost his wife, Katie, to a rare liver cancer on Jan. 7, 2013, when she was just 32. That makes his two consecutive games as a healthy scratch this season, back on Nov. 10 and 12, seem inconsequential.
But this is the profession that Moore, 35, has chosen, and he approaches it with that buttoned-up mentality that is ingrained in the team that drafted him in the third round (95th overall) in 2000, and who welcomed him back after a year off in 2013, along with stops at eight other NHL teams.
“I think I am who I am,” Moore said. “I just continue to prepare the same way regardless of what’s going on around me. I don’t think about anything other than that.”
There has been some drama around the team recently, especially the healthy scratch of 23-year-old forward Kevin Hayes on Wednesday, as coach Alain Vigneault ripped him from corner to corner in calling out his work ethic and asking if management had “over-estimated his possibilities.” With months of troubling performances from some of the younger players and older players alike — including a drop-off from early-season astronomic heights from goalie Henrik Lundqvist — there were questions of where this team was going.
One win, no matter how convincing, does not put those questions to rest. But exemplified in Moore was the reminder of who these Rangers were, and a glimpse of what type of team they might return to be.
“Dominic was outstanding,” Lundqvist had said. “It’s great to see.”
The Rangers signed Ryan Gropp, 19, the team’s second-round pick (41st overall) in the 2015 draft. The 6-foot-2, 190-pound forward played 32 games this season with the Seattle Thunderbirds of the WHL, registering 18 goals and 14 assists.