LOS ANGELES — There is pomp and circumstance for the Rangers to savor, you bet there is, and so that’s what they were doing at media day on Tuesday.
Henrik Lundqvist talked about walking past huge pictures of the 1994 parade that adorn the walls of the practice facility every day for nine years and about how he has “dreamed about being part of a winning team in New York.”
Dan Girardi sat at his podium for wave after wave of journalists and TV people, saying, “You have to allow yourself to soak it all in.
“After we beat Montreal, walking around the city, you can tell New York is so excited about our team,” said the alternate captain who joined the Rangers during the 2006-07 All-Star break and is second in club seniority to Lundqvist. “There is no better feeling.
“So I’m soaking it all in and will until we step on the ice. But when the puck drops, it’s really going to hit me.”
When the puck drops on Game 1 of the finals, the Rangers will be four victories away from their own parade, will be four victories away from creating their own niche in franchise lore and New York sports history. Since the Blueshirts won the last time, the Yankees and Giants are the only teams in New York to have ridden through the Canyon of Heroes.
But when the puck drops on Rangers-Kings, it will no longer be about ceremony. It will be about hockey, about getting to four wins. And the Blueshirts are equipped to get the job done. They belong here even if they are viewed skeptically as interlopers from the East who will in short order become fodder for the big bad West.
The 1-0 victory in Game 6 of the Montreal series has become the template for Rangers success. The Rangers gave the Canadiens next to nothing in the match, growing stronger from the first period to the second, from the second period to the third.
“We were stifling,” Brian Boyle said. “We’ve addressed that, and that’s what we need to be if we’re going to win this.”
That Game 6 reminded me of another Game 6 from long ago, and no, not the Guarantee Game, but rather the Devils’ 3-0 clinching Game 6 of the 2000 conference semifinals in which they limited the Maple Leafs to six — count them — six shots on net that included one — count it — in the third period.
In fact, the Rangers remind me of the Devils who won three Cups in the nine-year stretch from 1995 through 2003. They are built from the goal and defense on out. They are a detail-oriented team. And they are a four-line, three-pair team on which there are no bit parts or bit players.
You hear Lundqvist talk about that over and over again, never more pointedly than immediately after Game 6 against the Canadiens.
“The entire team stepped up in key moments,” Lundqvist said after an 18-save performance reminiscent of the type patented by Martin Brodeur. “It makes it even more special when everyone feels like a big part of it.
“It’s important that everybody feels they’re bringing something to the table.”
The only thing the 1995 championship Devils’ Crash Line of Bobby Holik, Randy McKay and Mike Peluso had that the Blueshirts’ fourth line of Dominic Moore, Brian Boyle and Derek Dorsett doesn’t have is a nickname, that’s all. The roles are similar. So is the impact.
“We take a lot of pride in being able to have an impact on the game,” said Boyle. “I think everyone here feels like they have a part in this.”
When the Rangers talk about Game 6 against the Canadiens, they talk about the need to duplicate it again and again and again. No; not duplicate it. Improve upon it against a superior foe.
“It starts with thinking and reacting in groups of five,” said Boyle. “That’s what was so great about that game, the way we were all on the same page for almost 60 minutes.
“We need to defend. We need to skate. I think we’ve all seen what can be accomplished when we operate that way and it’s exciting. Now we have to push ourselves to reach that level and even surpass it in this round.”
The Devils could always skate. The Devils, who began their run with a couple of wise men from Montreal named Claude Lemieux and Stephane Richer who’d previously won a Cup, could always think in parties of five.
“At our best we’re a fast team. We take away time and space,” said Dominic Moore. “We need to play to our strength to be able to win this series.”
For now, it is about the moment for the Rangers. It is about enjoying their time in the sun. But beginning with the drop of the puck, it becomes about hockey and nothing but hockey.
The way it was about hockey and nothing but hockey for the Devils.