PHILADELPHIA — It was only a preseason game, and one in his new home and not at the Garden.
So all the emotions were not going to hit Kevin Hayes just yet Saturday night at Wells Fargo Center, when the center took the ice in a Flyers sweater to face the Rangers for the first time since they traded him in February and continued their rebuild without him.
But certain feelings still remain. And after a brief detour to Winnipeg, Hayes is back in the Metropolitan Division, meaning he will see plenty of the team with which he spent his first four and a half seasons in the NHL, however different it may look.
“I don’t even know half the team anymore, to be honest,” Hayes said Saturday morning, nearly three months removed from signing a seven-year, $50 million contract with the Flyers. “Year 1 to Year 6, there’s [four] guys left.
“They got rid of all the good guys — good locker room guys,” he added with a grin, before scoring a goal in a 4-1 win over the Rangers. “But that’s all right, we’ll see how it works out.”
Hayes joined the likes of Ryan McDonagh, Mats Zuccarello, Rick Nash and J.T. Miller as Rangers to get traded in deadline deals over the past two seasons, a roster overhaul that began with the letter from management in 2018. The only holdovers from Hayes’ first season in 2014 are Henrik Lundqvist, Marc Staal, Chris Kreider and Jesper Fast.
Since they sent Hayes packing in a deal with the Jets — getting back Brendan Lemieux and a first-round pick that helped land Jacob Trouba a few months later — the Rangers have added Artemi Panarin, Trouba, Adam Fox, Kaapo Kakko and Vitali Kravtsov to their roster, taking steps towards speeding up the rebuild.
“I don’t know if they’re good steps or bad steps … but they’re steps, I guess,” said Hayes, who tallied a career-high 55 points last season. “No, I have no hard feelings towards them. I loved my time there.”
Not long ago, Hayes was roommates with Brady Skjei and Jimmy Vesey. Now Hayes is a Flyer, Vesey is a Sabre and only Skjei is still a Ranger.
“They chose to get rid of me and Ves, but that’s their decision,” Hayes said. “I’m sure it’ll come back to them, but we’ll find out.”
The Rangers chose not to commit to Hayes and his asking price for the long haul, but the 27-year-old found the term and money he was looking for with the Flyers. They acquired him from the Jets in June before signing him to a hefty long-term pact, reuniting him with his old coach, Alain Vigneault, who is now behind the Flyers bench.
Vigneault was not as willing to reminisce Saturday before facing his old team. He coached his final game with the Rangers at Wells Fargo Center in 2018, and gave a staunch defense of his work postgame, only to get fired hours later.
“The Rangers did what they had to do and I wish them nothing but the best,” said Vigneault, who watched the game from an executive suite instead of behind the bench. “I had a great five years there and I want them to have success against everybody but us.”
Hayes said he was happy to be back with Vigneault, whom he called “if not the biggest reason, one of the biggest reasons” why he signed with the Flyers. While Hayes acknowledged there was “some tough love there” with Vigneault early on, he appreciated how the coach “turned me into a 200-foot player and penalty-kill guy.”After spending his Rangers tenure never playing on a contract longer than two years, Hayes finally found the security he was looking for. It has him feeling “ecstatic” entering the season.
“The last three years, it was trade bait basically every year,” he said. “I’m happy with where I’m at, physically and mentally, and getting excited again to play hockey.”