Sometimes, Chris Kreider’s active mind inhibits his natural ability. And just like his Rangers teammates, when Kreider simplifies things, he is at his best.
So that is how the 27-year-old winger is going to try to lead this young team out of the 2-5-3 rut that it brings into Tuesday night’s Garden match against the Ducks. His hope, and the hope of head coach David Quinn, is that by Kreider putting his head down and leading by example, the rest of the team will follow and start to dig itself out of this self-inflicted depression.
“I think there’s a little frustration, but I think it would be an issue if there wasn’t,” Kreider told The Post after Monday’s practice. “Guys in here want to win games. At the end of the day, that’s what matters.”
Not a lot was expected of the Rangers this season, but a lot was expected of Kreider, with one more year left on his contract carrying an annual salary-cap hit of $4.625 million. He has delivered, leading the team with 15 goals in 32 games, on pace for his best statistical season since joining the Blueshirts as a fresh-faced kid out of Boston College in the spring of 2012.
“He’s a guy that’s obviously been very productive, points-wise and goals-wise,” Quinn said. “I think his last three games, he’s played well. When he plays that simple, straight-line game, he’s a hard guy to handle. I think our guys really follow that lead from him.”
Also like the rest of this team, there are stretches when Kreider seems to be playing less instinctually, and then times when he seems indomitable. That was exactly the case during the team’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Golden Knights on Sunday afternoon, when Kreider and just about everyone else on the roster were less engaged for the opening 40 minutes, but he spent the third period playing like a wrecking ball.
“I think I’ve been playing pretty simple lately, running into people, getting to the net, getting pucks to the net,” he said. “Do that consistently, do that as a group, just the law of averages.”
What that means is that the law of averages says that if the Rangers keep playing hard and smart, they will start winning more. Of course that’s the way they’re going to think, and it’s exactly the way they’re trying to turn this season around before it gets out of hand.
“I think that when this team is winning games, it’s because we’re all doing the right things. Rising tides lifts all ships,” Kreider said. “We’ve seen spurts of that, but when you’re playing good teams like a Winnipeg or Nashville, like Vegas, if you’re not doing that, it’s very obvious, very evident. So games like that are good for us. We take a lot from that, can learn from that. We have to, or there’s no point.”
Kreider is not a typical hockey player in the sense that he is academically curious, often speaking fluent Russian to his young teammate Pavel Buchnevich. He also thinks deeply about the game, about structure and the domino effect of the ways plays develop — and that can sometimes keep him from just playing and making fast, natural decisions.
“He’s a very smart guy, and I think sometimes he can overthink it,” Quinn said. “He and I have talked about that, he acknowledges that. And I think sometimes that can get in his way of being the player that he needs to be. I think he’s done a really good job of not overthinking the last few games, and we’ve seen the results.”
Now, what Kreider wants is for his teammates to follow his lead, and then he hopes that results in more wins.
“Play hard, try to lead by example, finishing checks, focus on the details,” he said. “Those are the things that are going to help us get out of this little rut we’re in. It’s making the simple play crisply, over and over again. We talk about not getting bored making the right play. We’ve seen that in spurts, but we need to get back to that.”