It was a game of war last year between John Tortorella, the coach of the Rangers, and Marian Gaborik, the marquee forward of the Rangers, that proved much like the fictional thermonuclear war in the movie “War Games.”
Because no one could win.
Not the coach, whose team finished in eighth place before being routinely dispatched in a five-game first-round playoff series, and not the world-class athlete, who struggled through an unhappy season in which he scored a comparatively meager 22 goals in 62 games.
But upon leaving North America at the conclusion of the 2010-11 season, Gaborik dedicated himself to wiping out the sour taste of the season and becoming a player in Tortorella’s mold if that’s what it would take; to get out of the express lane and into the bumper-to-bumper traffic.
That’s what it does take. And it has taken.
In a season during which the Rangers have raised their own bar on an almost daily basis — yesterday stretching their Eastern Conference lead on the defending Stanley Cup champion Bruins to 12 points with 18 games remaining after a 4-3 triumph over the Bruins at Madison Square Garden — Gaborik has added elements of grit and blue-collar labor to his world-class offensive skill-set.
This combination has produced an all-star caliber season from Gaborik, who has used his speed and talent to score his share of breakaway goals off breathtaking moves, but who has routinely gone to the dirty areas to battle, and who shift after shift has gone to the front to produce a majority of his 32 goals from around the net.
This isn’t like Gaborik’s first Rangers season two years ago, when he unleashed a torrent of one-timers from the slot and the circles while on his way to 42 goals. This isn’t like last year, when Gaborik kept going wide while Tortorella demanded he become a grinder.
This, instead, is like Thursday, when Gaborik went to the front to chip in a loose puck in the crease in the 3-2 victory at Carolina.
And this, instead, is like yesterday, when Gaborik went to the left porch and was thus in position to bang in Dennis Seidenberg’s wayward clearing attempt for a 3-2 lead at 3:14 of the third before David Krejci would tie it at 11:42 and Derek Stepan would get the winner 39 seconds after that.
“That’s where the goals are scored,” said Gaborik, who has five in the last six games. “At this time of year you don’t score many by dipsy-doodling or waiting for someone to get you the puck.
“I want to be around the net. I want to be in that scoring area.”
The Rangers, first overall in the NHL with 91 points in 64 games, are 3-0 against the Bruins this season and 20-5-2 against Boston since the lockout.
Henrik Lundqvist is a career 19-5-2 against the Bruins and 10-4-1 head-to-head against Tim Thomas, who yesterday surrendered four goals on 17 shots and didn’t even wait until he could post something on Facebook to complain about the Garden lighting.
On the final shift, with Thomas pulled, Gaborik was on the ice, given the responsibility of protecting the one-goal lead and to get one more by a coach who appreciates the superstar’s transformation into a card-carrying member of the blue-collar union.
“It’s a huge part of his game this year,” Tortorella said. “He’s not swinging out, he’s played in traffic all year long, just banging them in there [from the front]. He’s made a concerted effort to work on the details of his game, offensively and defensively.
“I have faith in him.”
The object, after all, is to win the game.