The texts between fast friends Brian Boyle and Brandon Prust ceased over a week ago, before the start of the Rangers-Canadiens Eastern Conference finals.
“Too much at stake,” Boyle said a day before the series commenced. “We’ll get back to it after this is over.”
And now? Now, in the wake of his former Rangers teammate and one-time roommate breaking current teammate Derek Stepan’s jaw with a late hit in Game 3 for which the Montreal winger was suspended for two matches?
Now does the friendship pick up where it left off without this incident having any impact at all on the dynamic of the relationship?
“My loyalty is to the guys in this room who are about to play Game 100 of this season,” Boyle told The Post following Saturday’s practice at the Garden.
“With the opportunity we have, with all the crap we went through together at the beginning of the season and all through the year, the friendship thing isn’t really a part of the equation for me now,” he said.
“It’s hard to say whether this would have any impact, I haven’t really thought about that, but our team reaching our goal is all that matters.”
As Boyle was chatting in the locker room, the stall to his immediate right was vacant. Its occupant, Stepan, still was in the hospital, recovering from surgery he had undergone late Friday afternoon.
“Prustie is my friend, but the guy who sits right next to me and has for the last four years is out. He isn’t here because he was operated on,” Boyle said. “I’m not very happy about that.
“I guess it’s a pretty unique situation. I can’t ignore it. The hit was certainly something that shouldn’t have happened, in my opinion. Things happen, I guess. I don’t know.
“But Step is one of us. He’s a great teammate and he’s a friend. This is about us, about our team, about us having the chance to move on and play for the Cup. I’m not putting my focus on anything else.”
The ice is a little like Las Vegas, to hear Henrik Lundqvist tell it.
“Brandon and I have stayed friends. We don’t text back and forth, but during the season if there’s time in Montreal we’ll see each other” the goaltender told The Post. “To me, the game is the game. What happens on the ice stays on the ice.
“I haven’t given a lot of thought to this situation, but in my opinion there are a lot of players whose job is to play on the edge, where there’s a fine line between what you can and cannot do. That obviously is what [Prust] does,” Lundqvist said. “I think he took it too far there, but it’s over with now.”
It’s over with, but it’s there and will be for as long as Stepan is not there, and still will be there if and when the Rangers’ first-line center returns wearing facial protection. There is animosity now between the teams, manufactured on Montreal’s side relating to Carey Price’s series-ending knee injury he sustained in that Game 1 collision with Chris Kreider, there for the Rangers after Prust KO’d Stepan.
There are personal battles, too, such as the one between Ryan McDonagh and Brendan Gallagher, which is turning into a doozy.
“I think no matter what, once you play a series against a team, you get annoyed with one another, you get angry at one another,” Boyle said. “As the series progresses, I think so does that animosity between the two clubs … definitely.
“With what’s at stake, a chance to play in the Cup final, it’s inevitable.”
It’s inevitable injuries will occur, though Lundqvist said, “When you’re playing a game, you know the guys on the other team. You’re not out to hurt them. Hit them, yes; hurt them, no.”
Which is pretty much what Prust said on Saturday when addressing the hit and the two-game suspension he will begin serving with Game 4.
“My mindset is not to try to injure anybody and Step is a friend of mine,” he said. “Whether a friend or not, I don’t want to injure anybody.”
Friend?
“Especially during the playoffs, you don’t see your opponent as friends, even though you played with them,” Lundqvist said. “Right now, I don’t have any friends in Montreal.
“They’re just enemies, and you play it that way.”