BUFFALO — Ten years and nine months later, Chris Kreider has given me what folks in this business call a “scoop.”
For on the morning of his 12th season-opening match, the conversation got around to No. 20’s first one in Boston on Jan. 19, 2013.
The NHL season had been delayed by an owners’ lockout and Kreider had played for the then-named AHL Connecticut Whale during the work stoppage after having made a splash for the Blueshirts in the 2012 playoffs while fresh off the Boston College campus.
“It was a big deal, regardless of the playoffs,” said Kreider, who registered one shot in 10:13 of ice while playing on a line with Brian Boyle in the middle and Taylor Pyatt on the right. “It was my first NHL regular-season game. It resonated.
“The problem was I was trying to work through the broken ankle I got in my final AHL game.”
Say what?
“I broke my ankle in my last game there,” the senior Ranger repeated hours ahead of Thursday’s opener here against the Sabres. “We kept it pretty close to the vest.”
For more than 10 years it was kept close to the vest.
The Rangers appeared full of positive nervous energy coming off the ice from their morning skate Thursday. Linemates Mika Zibanejad and Kaapo Kakko, stalls adjacent, were conversing in Finnish. Chatter filled the locker room.
“Do I still get nerves?” Kreider reframed a question posed to him. “Of course, I do. But I get nerves before every game. I have those butterflies. I think you need that.
“But there’s always a little more when it’s the opener.”
This one marked Peter Laviolette’s debut behind the Blueshirts bench. If this marks a fresh start for the athletes, so does it for the head coach.
“I do [look at it that way],” Laviolette said. “I think any time you come into a new job it’s a new opportunity. There are new faces and you’re working on really everything, from systems to relationships and trust.
“But I’m excited about that, too, in the sense that this is a real good hockey team, an Original Six team, New York City, New York Rangers and a great group of guys to work with.
“I am excited about that.”
First impressions are not necessarily lasting ones. Bryan Trottier’s debut behind not only the Rangers bench but an NHL bench as head coach went swimmingly with his team trouncing the Hurricanes 4-1 in Raleigh, N.C., on Oct. 9, 2002.
Trottier’s tenure ended three-plus months later after only 20 more victories and 53 more games.
Indeed, Tom Renney was the last coach to win his first game behind the New York bench. That was on Feb. 26, 2004, when the Blueshirts defeated the Islanders 6-3 at the Coliseum a day after Glen Sather relinquished the coaching job to focus completely on his duties as general manager.
John Tortorella lost his first two games as Rangers coach after replacing Renney on Feb. 25, 2009. The 2013-14 Rangers lost the opener — and seven of their first 10 games — with Alain Vigneault having replaced Tortorella.
David Quinn’s Rangers got off to an 0-3 start in 2018-19 while the 2021-22 Blueshirts went 0-1-1 in Gerard Gallant’s first two contests behind the bench.
For whatever it’s worth, Laviolette’s five prior NHL teams — the Islanders, ‘Canes, Flyers, Predators and Capitals — went 4-1 in the coach’s first games behind those teams’ respective benches.
This was a strange camp. The club worked hard in practices and by all accounts the players were attentive in the classroom, but none of that translated to the six-game exhibition season in which the Rangers looked dreadful in going 1-5.
Zibanejad missed some time. Artemi Panarin missed some time. Filip Chytil missed a couple of weeks and all but the first exhibition game. No. 72 thus did not get the opportunity to work much at all with Panarin, his newly assigned linemate on the left with whom he played 103:39 last year and a total of 387:29 in their shared four seasons on Broadway.
“Every time you see [Chytil] out on the ice, he seems incredibly strong with his skating and his ability to make plays,” Laviolette said of the center, who will be joined on the right by Alexis Lafreniere. “This is a starting point. It’s Game 1.
“I’m excited to see it — just like you would be — to see how it goes.”
This is a starting point for Chytil and Panarin. This is a starting point for Laviolette. This is a starting point for Kreider, skating on two strong ankles.
This is a starting point for the Rangers.
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