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Chris Kreider takes a curtain call after Saturday’s win over the Capitals. (Getty Images)
Dean Boylan, the hockey coach at Andover Academy who had Chris Kreider as a 16-year-old and 17-year-old, couldn’t help but laugh at himself.
“This was a young man who played with such poise that I always expected he would fit in and succeed in the NHL, but I also thought it would take a period of adjustment,” Boylan said by phone yesterday afternoon. He then began to chuckle. “Chris certainly blew that away, didn’t he?”
He has blown everyone away — on and off the ice — this young man in a hurry who weeks after leaving Boston College has become an integral part of the Rangers’ drive to win the Stanley Cup.
Early this month he was the proverbial man among boys in helping to lead the Eagles to their second national championship in his three years on the Chestnut Hill campus.
Now, he is among men, about to commemorate turning 21 today with a Game 2 Garden party tonight attended by 18,200 guests who are just as likely to sing “Happy Birthday” as break out in chants of “Kreider…Kreider” as they did on Saturday, when he scored the game-winner in the Rangers’ 3-1 Game 1 victory over the Capitals just five days after scoring the game winner in the Rangers’ 3-2 first-round Game 6 victory in Ottawa.
No one who knew Kreider through his development expected quite this, quite so quickly, perhaps because this is a road never before traveled, from college directly to two goals in six playoff games, let alone two game-winning goals.
But there is agreement that Kreider’s blend of skating ability, character and championship pedigree made him the perfect candidate to blaze this trail and establish this precedent.
“To me, the biggest adjustment for guys going from college to the NHL is the speed of the game. But his size and the fact that he skates so well gives him a leg up,” BC assistant coach Greg Brown, the former NHL defenseman, said by phone yesterday without recognizing the pun. “So it doesn’t shock me that he could fit in.
“Immediately, going from winning the NCAA with us into the Rangers’ lineup and contributing in a matter of a week? No, I wouldn’t have predicted that, but I would have said that if anyone could do that, it would be Chris, not only because of his physical gifts, but because of his work ethic, his mental maturity and his character.”
Kreider is a native son of Boxford, Mass., the son of David and Kathy Kreider, who have shunned publicity, and the older brother of Katie. He attended Masconomet Regional HS in Topsfield for two years before transferring to Andover.
“Chris is very, very humble, always had great support from his family and has great family values,” Boylan said. “There was always mutual respect between Chris and his teammates and Chris and his coaches.
“He’s very bright, and was always interested in learning, in getting better, and I’m sure that continued with coach [Jerry] York at Boston College.
“He’s a terrific young man,” Boylan said. “He was a pleasure to coach, but I’m sure God had a lot more to do with Chris being where he is than I did.”
The Rangers entered the playoffs as homogenized a unit as possible, adding only three players to the roster — Jeff Woywitka via waivers the day before the season opened in Stockholm; Anton Stralman as a free agent in November; and John Scott from Chicago at the Feb. 27 trade deadline — who had not been with the team in training camp.
Yet on the day before the playoffs, and after weeks of public anticipation, in came Kreider, who was attending classes as a junior in college while the Rangers blocked 1,338 shots and threw 2,419 hits on their way to 51 wins, 109 points and first place in the east.
“I knew Chris a bit from seeing him over summers and from having gone to BC myself, so I gave him a call right before he signed to tell him to make whatever decision was best for him, but that we’d all be excited to have him with us if that was his choice,” Hingham native Brian Boyle said yesterday. “Since he’s come, everybody at one point or another has reached out to him and has welcomed him.
“Chris has been awesome. He’s tried to be a sponge and learn as much as possible. He’s very humble and doesn’t want to step on anybody’s toes, but he’s really fit in and has become more and more comfortable with the group.
“And I’ll tell you what, he can play; he’s helping us win games in the playoffs.”
Following Saturday’s victory, Ryan McDonagh, the Rangers’ second-year defenseman out of the University of Wisconsin, said that the team had encouraged Kreider to speak up and ask questions, and that the winger had been doing just that.
This was no surprise at all to his assistant coach at BC.
“Chris was always in the coaches’ offices watching tapes to see how he could improve,” Brown said. “He was always asking questions, always wanted to learn.
“He has a tremendous amount of natural ability but nobody worked at his game harder.”
The Rangers had hoped Kreider would leave BC after last season, but the winger, committed to getting his degree, declined the team’s repeated requests and returned for his junior season.
“We thought he was ready, but it’s not what we think, it’s what he thinks,” said Gordie Clark, the Rangers’ Director of Player Personnel who made Kreider the 19th overall selection of the 2009 Entry Draft. “Chris had been unhappy with the end of his sophomore year and wanted to go back and win a national championship.”
He won a national championship, took accelerated courses that brought him within four classes of attaining his degree and signed up for the NHL playoffs. The only thing he didn’t sign up for was the spotlight that has shined on him.
“Probably the hardest part of the experience,” Kreider said. “I’m not used to it.”
He is not used to it, but he has mastered it just as seamlessly as he has mastered every other part of his jump from campus theatre to the Broadway stage.
“A lot of us at Andover are watching the games,” Boylan said. “We’re tremendously proud of what we see.
“Chris is a very, very special hockey player but even more so, he’s a very special person. We couldn’t be happier for him and his family.
“Let’s go Rangers.”
larry.brooks@nypost.com