FIST THINGS FIRST: Mike Rupp is one player the Rangers are hoping can take over the role played by the pugnacious Brandon Prust (inset, fighting the Devils’ Eric Boulton last season), who signed with the Canadiens in the offseason. (Bill Kostroun, Getty Images)
Brandon Prust wasn’t simply a role player who killed penalties for the Rangers. The fact is that Prust’s energy, big heart and willingness to put his middleweight body on the line against the league’s heavyweights were as central to the club’s Black-and-Blueshirt identity as Ryan Callahan and Dan Girardi diving in front of every shot and hitting everything that moves.
“We loved that guy and that’s no exaggeration,” Brian Boyle, Prust’s friend and erstwhile linemate, said yesterday. “I think maybe we were a little bit spoiled having him here.”
Management recognized No. 8’s value to the team — coach John Tortorella had cited him as part of the “core” within weeks of the winger’s acquisition from Calgary on Feb. 1, 2010 — but did not come close to matching the four-year, $10 million free agent offer that lured Prust to Montreal last July 1.
As such, the Rangers have a void to fill entering the 48-game dash. It’s not just the penalty-killing, it’s not just the forecheck and it’s not even just the fighting the Rangers will miss from Prust, who tied the Bruins’ Sean Thornton for the NHL lead in fighting majors last season with 20.
It’s more when and with whom Prust fought. It’s Prust taking the temperature of the room and then five times last year engaging in a fight within a match’s first eight seconds.
It’s Prust challenging and throwing punches with Chris Neil late in the first period of Game 6 with the Rangers facing first-round elimination in Ottawa after the Senators’ heavyweight had run roughshod over the Blueshirts (and concussed Boyle with a blow to the head in Game 5) for much of the series.
“Prustie brought something unique in the league, which is why we saw what we saw with him on July 1,” Mike Rupp said. “I expect to be part of the group that picks up for his loss and contributes that way, a lot of that is my game, too, but I’m not going to go into games consciously trying to replicate what he did.
“It’s my own experience that the worst thing to do is go into a game so focused on making one particular thing happen, because it might not be there, and then you just screw up. But the mindset that Prustie had is our mindset as a team.”
Rupp, who played on a bad knee last year that severely limited his effectiveness, is expected to be joined by free agent Arron Asham in taking care of business previously handled by Prust. Boyle will play a part.
“Pruster played a very important role for our club, let’s give him his due,” Tortorella said. “It’s going to have to be a group [effort] to replace him.
“We lost a number of people. It happens to all clubs, and we have to find the way to fill in.”
Remember this, too: The Rangers lost another grinding, in-your-face staple when Brandon Dubinsky went to Columbus as part of the package for Rick Nash.
“It’s going to be hard for any one guy to reproduce what Prustie did, so it’s going to be on a number of us, including myself, to step up,” Boyle said. “I don’t think our identity is going to change at all.
“It’s who we are, no matter who has left.”