Of course he scored the first goal. Of course he did. Everything you want to know about these Rangers, why they play as they play and win as they win, you can observe in the way Ryan Callahan attacks a hockey game.
So of course when Madison Square Garden was sitting on tenterhooks nearly 12 minutes gone in the first period of the first playoff game, the game still knotted in a scoreless tie, it would be Callahan who would figure a way to sneak the puck behind Craig Anderson. It isn’t just that he wears the captain’s “C” on his sweater. He lives it.
“The moment he scores that goal,” Brad Richards would say, “you’re thinking, ‘OK. This is exactly the way it’s supposed to go.’”
And it was. Of course. The Rangers would go on to a 4-2 win over the Ottawa Senators, would seize a 1-0 lead in these best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinals, would shake off the stubborn Senators and get four goals from four different men, one reliably stingy effort from Henrik Lundqvist, so what they did was take the formula that earned them the top seed in the conference and lug it into the playoffs.
Nudged along by their captain.
It’s not a stretch to say this wonderful, beautiful season had its origins in Game 80 of 82 last year, a must-have match in which the Rangers went down 3-0 to the Bruins and somehow rallied back against the eventual champs, precisely the kind of grind-it-out effort for which they’ve rightly earned so much praise across this year’s 82.
It was late in that game, the Rangers desperately clinging to a lead and to their playoff hopes, when Callahan planted himself in front of Boston defenseman Zdeno Chara and his hundred-mile-an-hour slapshot, executed easily the bravest (or craziest) play in all of professional sports by serving as a human shield.
He stopped the puck with his foot. His ankle exploded. His season was over, and he had to sit and stew through the Rangers’ six-game playoff loss to the Capitals, eating his heart out every night.
“That was tough, of course it was tough,” he would say, shrugging his shoulders, shaking his head, recoiling at the memory. “But luckily I’m healthy now. And anle to play. Able to be a part of all of this.”
It absolutely tells you something about the player Callahan is that he blocked 88 shots this year, third among NHL forwards, and that he had another one last night, and will surely take as many as necessary to keep this wonderful ride as long as possible. It tells you something else that on a night when the Rangers needed a little prodding to get started against the No. 8 seed, Callahan got them their first lead of the second season. It wasn’t lost on the 18,200 who gleefully and gratefully acknowledged that piece of largesse.
It was a terrific night all around at the Garden, the surrounding streets swollen with blue shirts as early as 2 o’clock in the afternoon, its corridors humming the moment the doors were unlocked, the last verse of John Amirante’s National Anthem drowned under an ocean of noise.
It had been 16 years since the Rangers had the home ice in a playoff series, meaning it had been 16 years since there’d been a Game 1 around which to chatter and cheer.
How long is that?
The last time the Rangers had hosted a Game 1 – April 16, 1996 – they’d lost 3-2 in OT to Montreal. That same night, in Milwaukee, a rookie shortstop named Derek Jeter went 2-for-4 for the Yankees in a 6-3 loss to the Brewers.
They were the 22nd and 23rd hits of his career.
So the people were ready to dance, and the Captain gave them every reason to dance, and to shout, and to embrace the onset of these NHL playoffs. We’ve seen all around the sport what a harsh reality these days can be, saw it in Pittsburgh, saw it in Vancouver, saw it in St. Louis and Boston.
“We feel we’ve been playing playoff hockey through the season,” Callahan said. “That’s the way we play anyway.”
It’s been a good way to play for six months already. What’s another two among friends?
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com