MONTREAL — It has all changed, all of it has in the wake of the injury to Carey Price that has KO’d the Canadiens’ world-class, gold-medal-winning, franchise goaltender from the remainder of the Eastern Conference finals against the Rangers.
The focus has changed from the wide lens of the competition between these two dark horse teams to advance to the Cup Final to the narrower focus on Chris Kreider; the play on which he crashed into Price early in the second period of Game 1; the escalating verbal attack on Kreider from Montreal coach Michel Therrien; and the possibility of retaliation against either Kreider or Henrik Lundqvist in Monday’s Game 2 or beyond.
Suddenly, it is all different. Suddenly, and for the first time since the first pucks were dropped in training camps across the continent back in September, the Rangers appear overwhelming favorites to come out of the East.
Except it is not different at all for the Rangers, who seem entirely nonplussed by all the commotion and whose tunnel vision remains 20/20, just as it has been through the entire tournament.
Price or not, veteran backup Peter Budaj or young understudy Dustin Tokarski or not in nets for Montreal, the Blueshirts are minding their own business and nobody else’s.
“There are so many elite goalies, especially at this time of year where you’re talking about playing a few games as opposed to a whole year, if they’re in net they are going to be great, and you have to expect that,” Henrik Lundqvist said.
“Look at Anaheim bringing a guy in from the stands to play. We can’t let it matter to us who’s playing for the other side,” said the King. “We have to prepare the same way and challenge ourselves to be at our best.”
The guy from the stands to whom Lundqvist referred was the Ducks’ 20-year-old freshman John Gibson, who leapfrogged backup Jonas Hiller to start the final four games of the Anaheim-LA Western Conference semis after No. 1 Frederik Andersen went down with an injury. Gibson posted a shutout in Game 4 and then allowed two goals in a Game 5 victory before losing Games 6 and 7.
“Every goalie who is in the NHL is here for a reason,” said Rick Nash, Price’s Canadian Olympic teammate. “Carey is an amazing goalie, but we can’t get caught up in who is or isn’t in the lineup for the other team.
“That’s not what we’re about in here. I think every guy knows for himself to approach this game the same way, no matter what’s going on around us, but I’m sure we’re going to talk about it as a group in our pre-game meetings.”
Brad Richards, one of the tone-setters, doubled down on what Nash had to offer.
“It’s very dangerous if you start worrying about who is in the other team’s lineup,” Richards said. “It’s all about us right now and how we prepare. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Let’s make it clear, to borrow the language used by Lundqvist following the morning skate: There was nothing that Kreider, faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive, could have done to avoid skidding into Price after he was clipped on the right skate on his sprint to the net by a hopelessly beaten Alexei Emelin.
There was no time and there was no space and there was nowhere else to go for No. 20 other than where his momentum took him. Unfortunately, that was directly into Price. No Montreal player responded at the time of the collision.
Indeed, Brandon Prust, who had been trailing the play just like everyone else on the ice, skated toward the scene of the crash, approached his fallen former Ranger teammate, and turned away immediately to check on Price. And after the game, Therrien said: “I think it was accidental, honestly.” It was only on Sunday and Monday that the Canadiens’ language escalated, creating a phony controversy.
And that escalation of language diverted public attention from whether the Rangers could grab a 2-0 series lead in the wake of Saturday’s 7-2 Game 1 rout to whether the Canadiens would go gunning for Kreider or Lundqvist.
“I hope not, but we’ll see,” said Lundqvist, a target of extracurricular activity throughout each of the first two rounds against the Flyers and Penguins. “In the playoffs, you have to expect that it’s going to be more physical and more bumpy.
“I play so deep that if I get hit, it’s pretty obvious they’re running into the goalie.”
Again, though, adopting the public’s attention is not the Rangers’ intention. The Blueshirts were focused on ending their absurd 13-game losing streak with a playoff series lead that stretches all the way back to the 2009 first round against Washington — and includes three defeats this year to the Flyers and one to the Penguins.
“The last couple of series we won the first game and didn’t take advantage of having a lead and winning another one,” Marc Staal said. “It’s making sure we up the ante and focus on what we need to do, and that doesn’t change with who’s in net.”
So even as it has all changed, nothing has changed for the Rangers.