BUFFALO — We know how last season ended. We know how a 107-point season turned into ashes in the playoffs. We know that good men lost their jobs.
And here, five months later, the Rangers are back. But they are not vowing to make amends. They are not seeking retribution. Truth is, last year essentially never came up during training camp. Turk who?
“I think there comes a certain point when if you’re trying to make up from last year, trying to make up for this loss or that loss, that blocks you from going out there and playing,” Mika Zibanejad told The Post in advance of Thursday’s opener here against the precious Sabres. “There is no need to sit here and talk about last year. We are just looking to move forward.
“Mistakes are going to happen. If we’re still referencing these mistakes in the past and are always looking back, then we are getting nowhere.”
Peter Laviolette is making his debut behind the New York bench that was vacated by Gerard “Turk” Gallant following the first-round defeat to the Devils, in which the Blueshirts forgot to compete along the way. The new coach is expected to take the team somewhere.
Laviolette is the Rangers’ third head coach in the past four seasons, following Gallant and David Quinn. Some have said that this is a tough group to coach. To be fair, it’s me who has said that, and more than once. So I asked Zibanejad, entering his eighth season on Broadway, for his take on that matter.
“You know, maybe it’s easy to say that now, but we have gone through different phases,” No. 93 said. “After my second year, we were in a rebuild, so Quinney was supposed to come in and help the young guys. We got better, and they brought in Turk to take us to the next level. We had a great first year, two wins away from the Cup finals.
“So there were greater expectations last year that were not met. And now there’s a new coach.”
The veteran core of Rangers chafed under Quinn’s college style of interpersonal relationships. He screamed a lot on the ice. They thought he was hovering. Gallant was the polar opposite. He stayed out of the players’ way. He was lauded for it through the 2022-23, 110-point season that ended with a stunning run to the conference finals.
But Gallant apparently took that to the extreme. The players stopped throwing roses at the coach’s feet. In fact, they felt adrift. Exit meetings reinforced the divide. In last season’s wake, the Blueshirts have a demanding, detail-oriented coach in Laviolette.
“Things change,” Zibanejad said when asked about Gallant’s demise. “I feel like, one day you think you’ve got it and you’ve figured out how this world works, and the next day you don’t, so … I don’t know,
“Obviously the team we had last year wanted to go past the first round and further. We had some ups and downs like everyone, and back-to-back 100-point seasons are pretty good. But it wasn’t good enough.”
Other than the rentals (Vlad Tarasenko, Patrick Kane, Nikko Mikkola), the gang is back. Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, Artemi Panarin, Adam Fox, Jacob Trouba, Ryan Lindgren, Filip Chytil, Kaapo Kakko and Igor Shesterkin have been in place since 2019-20. K’Andre Miller and Alexis Lafreniere joined the band the following season.
Kids no more, this is a mature group.
Going on 10 years since the last trip to the finals. Going on 30 years since the one and only Cup since — sing it with me — 1940.
“I think everyone is eager to learn. If you look at this camp closely, in terms of learning and wanting to learn and wanting to be coached, I think that’s been the major part of it for all of us,” said Zibanejad, who will skate between Kreider and Kakko. “It’s about learning. I think you learn every day.
“Every year is a fresh start. You look forward to doing better. We want to get better as the season goes on. We want to keep pushing and try to be more. That’s how we see it.”
Zibanejad is an elite player. He does everything for the Rangers. He did for Quinn, he did for Gallant, and he will do it all for Laviolette. The introspective Swede, though, is entering his 12th NHL season with a different mental approach.
“For me, I want to be a little more positive. Last year it always seemed so serious,” he said. “Of course we take this seriously, but we are playing the game that we love, and we’re trying to win. There should be more enjoyment in that. A positive mindset creates more energy.
“I think it’s better to be in the mind frame of wanting to win rather than being afraid to lose. That’s my approach. We can’t change what happened last year. We can learn from it but it’s important to understand that we have a good team. We need to be excited about playing.
“That’s what I expect.”
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